Althouse: "Norway’s handsome PM poses as taxi driver to hear the wishes of the people."

August 13, 2013

"Norway’s handsome PM poses as taxi driver to hear the wishes of the people."

(Via Bloggingheads.)

16 comments:

MadisonMan said...: I'm surprised the passengers didn't start tweeting that they were being driven around in a taxi by the PM. Isn't that what would happen in the US?; 8/13/13, 11:12 AM
AaronS said...: It was a Labour Party ad. All the people were paid to be in the taxi. They were all Labour supporters.
Another entry for the annals of "not technically true but tells the truth". A tactic our moral superiors are so fond of using.; 8/13/13, 11:29 AM
Bob Ellison said...: He should do a stint in a restaurant.; 8/13/13, 11:44 AM
Robert Zaleski said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/13/13, 11:44 AM
Robert Zaleski said...: Such a sexist headline, "handsome", why does that matter?

It's good to see comments again BTW :D; 8/13/13, 11:45 AM
Amexpat said...: Paid political ads are not allowed on TV in Norway, so this was a good stunt to get some free PR.

Taxi drivers in Oslo are licensed, a process involving passing a street knowledge test and getting clearance from the police, so Stoltenberg could not have driven a taxi for money legally.

I drove a taxi for a number years in Oslo in the 90's. It was a good way to get a feel for what people were thinking and, late on weekend nights, what they really were like.; 8/13/13, 11:54 AM
From Inwood said...: Obviously this post ties in with your Oprah post below.

There have been other real-life examples of this.

My wife had an uncle, an immigrant with a brogue, who was a dandy despite the fact that he was a track man with the NYC subways. From time to time he would ascend while on lunch break (like a Herblock cartoon of Nixon, or a Currier & Ives caricature, I guess) & go into a posh Fifth Ave store, now defunct, & buy a very expensive Sunday-go-to-church suit, top coat, shoes, whatever. He always complained at gatherings how hard it was to get waited on & blamed it on anti-Irishness.

Today, most of my geezer friends have sworn off dressing up, even at wakes. One of them & his wife, who also dresses down, coincidentally use the same dermatologist as my wife & I, a famous doc who is from humble beginnings & a snob. I always wear an expensive sport coat, slacks, & loafers even when I go to my docs. Some of my friends say I’m insecure! Recently at dinner, our friends said that they would no longer go to said dermatologist because he seemed condescending to them. I bit my tongue as my wife kicked me under the table.

Once while painting some stuff in my back yard in NYC, I saw a kid open my neighbors' back door. I called 911 but he was gone when they came. Still they took me for a ride around in the squad car, me in my paint rags including a paint-splattered BB cap. Then story the next day was that the cops had arrested a guy in a baseball cap….

Sorry, guys, sorry Oprah.

BTW, as we know, Hollywood has made tons of movies about mistaken identity such as My Man Godfrey, The Prince and The Pauper, Superman/Clark Kent, The Great Dictator, North by Northwest, Being There, any Danny Kaye movie (The vessel with The pestle has the pellet with the poison (don’t make me look it up!).

The point of these stories is both how easy it is to fool people who want to be fooled or who assume that most people are being honest and telling the truth, & how easy it is get away with lying if you have chutzpah.

Now let me tell you about a community organizer who is passed off as an Ivy League grad, intellectual capable of being POTUS. Nah.; 8/13/13, 12:17 PM
Anonymous said...: President Obama should drive a Chicago cab for a week. It'l provide more value to the nation and he'll get the education he never received coming up.; 8/13/13, 12:23 PM
Hagar said...: I understand the Norwegian Labor Party has officially abandoned socialism and now proclaim themselves to be a mainstream Social Democrat party.; 8/13/13, 1:34 PM
Hagar said...: Norway also now has a voting system as nutty, or even nuttier, than Israel, so they now have 25-30 political parties - no one is quite certain of the number from month to month - only about half of which get enough votes to send even one representative to Parliament.; 8/13/13, 1:38 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: I'm sorry, but I don't believe any of it. This is not Henry V territory -- "a little touch of Harry in the night." I do not believe that all Norwegian cab users look like that.; 8/13/13, 2:21 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Such a sexist headline, "handsome", why does that matter?

"Why does that matter"? Is it even true?; 8/13/13, 2:43 PM
Richard Lawrence Cohen said...: This guy looks suspiciously like Putin. I detect a commie plot.; 8/13/13, 5:13 PM
Paul said...: What he does only works if you get to meet a representative section of the people. If all he meets a fat-cats or the downtrodden he will have a skewed view of what the people what.

But at least he is trying!; 8/13/13, 5:18 PM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: It is all quite unlikely to prevent conservatives from garnering massive gains in the upcoming elections. Nice try. No cigar.; 8/13/13, 6:54 PM
CWJ said...: Cab drivers where suits and ties? This fools the riders into thinking this is a normal driver? Really?!?; 8/13/13, 8:41 PM