Wednesday, November 26, 2014

In which Dame Slap asks if anyone can hear the sound of a one-handed barnacle clapping in the forest?


(Above: the pond loves the loving detailing Rowe puts into his cartoons. To see the full version, head off to the rotating rotunda at the AFR here, where for the moment, today only, it's top of the page and features the PUP follies).

Thanks to a pond correspondent, the pond was made aware of just how low Malcolm Turnbull has managed to go, in terms of casual defamation and smears, in the ABC debate.

Now the pond has always held Turnbull in contempt, and, at that, long before the Godwin Grech utegate affair in 2009, always reserving a hollow, echoing cynical laugh of the patented Treasure of the Sierra Madre kind. Here you go:



It's the same sort of laugh the pond reserved for credulous Queenslanders who seemed to think that the buffoon and his team of PUPs represented a new way forward in politics.

Okay, that hearty laugh's out of the way, let's get back to the thoroughly contemptible Malcolm Turnbull and and his contemptible innuendo. The straight story is here:

"The ABC under Labor just got more money every year," he told Sky News. 
"I think there was, in effect, a political bargain between the Labor government and the ABC: We'll keep sending you more money and you just have peace at the industrial front at the ABC." 
Asked if he was suggesting such a bargain affected editorial content of the ABC, Mr Turnbull replied: "I'm not suggesting that. Others can infer that."

Of course, in saying that, he just suggested it, and he suggested others could infer it, because he'd just suggested it ...

It's exactly the style of the fabulously despicable cad Francis Urquhart, in House of Cards, whose line is now the most quoted of any political Machiavelli:

Now you might very well think that, but of course I couldn't possibly comment.

Of course Urguhart is a figure of fun, a psychopath, a deceiver and a consummate liar and fraud. Welcome to the club Mr Turnbull ...

The pond's correspondent drew attention to the outraged tweets of Melissa Clarke (for the originals and more bitter comments, go here):



Then came the official denial:


But it was academic, because the only person to emerge from that sordid, sorry little affair, that immensely revealing exchange, with their credibility tarnished was Malcolm Turnbull ... and by golly there is a little resemblance in the slyness:



But enough of playing catch up with the forelock tugging, lickspittle follies known as the big Mal show, it's time to look forward, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and what a wealth of choices there is this morning at reptile lodge.

Should the pond go with the assiduous knob polisher and forelock tugger, a past master of the bent knee tribute?


An optimistic message of hope and reassurance!

Or should the pond risk a case of stuporous catatonia and spend time with the team coach who seems to think a little work's needed to make the nation swallow its castor oil?


How about Dame Slap, sounding like a demented Elmer Gantry style preacher, demanding repentance and confession?


Of course, of course, there was only one wise choice. 

You see, for some reason, Dame Slap decided that today was the day to give Master Tony a jolly good spanking on the britches for failing at his many Chairman Rupert appointed and anointed tasks:


In short, Dame Slap knows the liar told a lie and so decided he should spend a little time wearing a dunce's cap and standing in the corner, because he's mucked up the job demanded by Chairman Rupert - de-gut the ABC, in a quick, painless way. 

Instead the befuddled, beheaded chook has been running around the garden spraying blood everywhere ...

On and on Dame Slap ranted about messages being mulched in delivery, and it soon became clear that Master Tony was her least favourite student. 

In short, she did a despairing Bolter, one of a number of commentariat members who've started shouting more at Abbott than at Bill "zinger" Shorten:


By the time Dame Slap got to the end of her complaints, the report card was full of red ink and exclamation marks and dire warnings that Master Abbott was failing badly, and might not see out the term:


So there you go. The Abbott government is on the nose, seriously on the nose. Jolly Joe has been a disaster. A cabinet reshuffle is needed and the sooner the better. The Abbott government is heading the way of the Napthine government ...

Things are serious. Dame Slap is flaying her children. Attention needs to be paid ...

At this point of course, the pond is inclined to deliver that deeply rich and ironic, the gold is blowing in the wind, Treasure of Sierra Madre laugh ...

You see, just this morning came news of a new outbreak, a new brush fire that required Master Tony's attention:


Yep, there's the absurd spectacle of the Minister for Defence saying one thing, and Abbott attempting to say the other, as you can read in Tony Abbott backs submarine maker his defence minister 'wouldn't trust to build a canoe':

The prime minister defended ASC, formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation, saying it played a vital role in supporting the navy. 
“Whilst ASC has had challenges meeting the government’s cost and schedule expectations of the Air Warfare Destroyer program, we are working closely with ASC on a reform strategy to improve shipyard performance and productivity,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. 
 “It is early days, but the government is confident that ASC and its partners will successfully turn the corner on this important build.”

So who is right? Master Tony, or his defence minister?

Of course there's an even deeper irony at work here. Guess who's on the ASC board?


(You can find out more, and perhaps think of joining the ASC Social Club, by heading off here).

Oh yes, a Master Abbott appointment.

One thing's certain. Of all the people you might want to appoint, in order to supervise the building of a canoe, surely Sophie Mirabella would be the most inept and incompetent choice of all ...

Poor old Dame Slap ... did she say something about Team Abbott kept kicking own goals, and mulching messages in delivery?

And so to the Xmas message:

Tony Abbott has asked nervous government MPs to maintain internal discipline in the face of the ABC funding controversy and bad polling, reassuring them he will knock "one or two barnacles off the ship" before Christmas. 
The Prime Minister's comments touched off speculation that he is shaping to abandon one or more of his unpopular budget measures concluding there is no chance of passing them through the Senate and that the government has lost enough skin trying to do so until now. 
But unity was already under strain on Tuesday with Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull admitting the 4.9 per cent so-called "efficiency dividend" being extracted from the ABC funding envelope, constituted a cut, and another MP, Western Sydney Liberal Craig Laundy, calling on the Prime Minister to dispense with "verbal gymnastics" on the matter. (Christmas message: Tony Abbott prepares to knock the 'barnacles off the ship')

That's the Xmaa message from the Xmas Grinch? And it might be time for a re-shuffle?

There are a few barnacles on the ship?

If the pond could just go the full Buddha, the barnacles are the ship, the ship is the barnacles ... and the biggest barnacle of all is the barnacle in charge of the ship of barnacles, and re-shuffling and knocking off that barnacle will take another full year of the kinds of efforts seen this year ...

And in that endeavour the pond has absolute faith ...

Oh it's going to be a good one ... the barnacles will be everywhere ... as Abbott knows if he sends embittered failures to the back bench ... because they realise, as Dame Slap does, that the chief barnacle is the real problem, and Under Tony Abbott we are going nowhere with the nowhere man ...

(Below: Master Tony takes a suspicious look at the present Dame Slap left for him under the Xmas tree)


18 comments:

  1. Another video mashup for you. Tony Abbott and the Holy Grail.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liU9NjuItYQ

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tony Abbott, black knight, and the holy grail of "efficiency dividend"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liU9NjuItYQ

    ReplyDelete
  3. The proliferation of the 'just sayin'" response by politicians would be hilarious if it weren't so serious.

    There's a great deal of difference between a politician using 'just sayin'" to put something out there and you or I using the term.

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  4. Hi Dorothy,

    "Cutting funding to the ABC is a no-brainer"

    Spoken like a true zealot, absolutely certain of the righteousness of her cause.

    Evidently even amongst the original Zealots in 1st century Judea, there was an even more extreme sub-group called the Sicarii ("violent men" or "dagger men") who were so unwilling to compromise in the besieged Jerusalem, that they killed fellow Jews who contemplated surrender. They also objected to the way priestly families were running the Temple.

    So there we go, Janet Albrectsen not just a Zealot but a full on Sicarius.

    So it begins, the reptiles are turning on their political creation. Interesting times!

    DiddyWrote

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  5. Apparently our Tones has 62,000 Facebook friends in India alone. Mind you, Facebook friends in India are pretty cheap to buy I would imagine. Much cheaper than Australian friends.

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  6. Diddy, the zealots you refer too got slaughtered in the end.

    On an historical note;
    According to the Roman historian Josephus, It took 4 full legions 6 months to capture Jerusalem in 70AD.
    On entering the city they burnt the temple of Solomon to the ground and proceeded to butcher everything that still moved. Especially zealots.

    As Monty Python would say, "What did the ABC ever do for us".

    ReplyDelete
  7. The brilliance of your Dame Slap slap surpasses all, but I might also join you in observing the collapse of Big Mal. After so much promise from all those appearances on Q & A, where with a bit of help from Tony Jones he'd always seemed the height of reason and conservative common sense. And for those brave enough to watch Parliamentary Question Time under the dictatorship of Pyne and Bronnie Bishop, he'd occasionally seemed quite witty in those slapdowns of Labor in the early days. He even generated laughter and smiles from those coffiured women of calibre on the government benches. That continued for a while after the weak whingeing of Hockey and Abbott had worn thin.

    But alas, for all his potential, there does not seem much of substance to Mal. He seems unable to make principled decisions and then stand by them, an essential component in an independent mind, no matter how brilliant. He has shown no more courage than that other coodabeen, Peter Costello. His political judgement is not better than his moral courage.

    A reasonable reading of the political situation, possibly a little blurred by the MSM and Rudd, was that Abbott was unsustainable. He offered nothing to governance, and could be defined only by what he opposed. The sensible thing would have been to have remained aloof on the backbench. There was nothing he could contribute to this wrecking machine. Sooner or later, even the Murdoch media would be unable to maintain the facade, as we are seeing now.

    Then he would have been welcomed with flowers, even by former enemies. He cannot now do this from within. By joining Abbott and selling out on the NBN, he did in all his credibility. What might have remained he's now shredded in the attempt to gut the ABC and SBS. In the process, that 'sweet reason' image is shattered. He's as big a flake as Clive, even if he presents as a little more refined.

    He is safe from being sacked in this government just because he can string a few coherent sentences together, in a Team Australia that has a dangerous void in that area. But he can never be an alternative PM. He fell for the old Howard trick of being sucked in by the glitter.

    I suppose holding out for principle didn't do Petro Georgiou much good materially, but he kept his integrity and respect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reminding me about Petro. I would love to know what he thinks about the present govt.

      I think he works at one of the universities now but I am not sure.

      Miss PP

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    2. Thanks for the dose of reality GD. I keep reminding myself that Turnbull was, after all, a successful merchant banker before entering politics. Now I'm not one to prejudge, but making other people's money is generally not a good sign of 'the height of reason and conservative common sense.'

      Delete
    3. Well put GD.The first and most obvious sign of the intellectual imbecile is the absence of substance, and Turnbull qualifies with spades. More chance as Prime Muppet than Prime Minister.

      Delete
  8. South Australian election 2014. Tones. Speech to Liberal Party at campaign launch:

    "For the best part of the last 12 years, there has been a government here in Adelaide that could think of a million reasons to say no, but could never think of a reason to say, enthusiastically and unambiguously – yes.

    Well, I say yes to the good ideas of South Australia.

    I say yes to the people of South Australia.

    I say yes to the big future which is waiting for you.

    That’s what I say and most of all, on this day, I say yes to the person who is carrying our hopes and dreams – not just the hopes and dreams of Liberals, but the hopes and dreams of everyone who thinks that tomorrow can be better than today.
    "

    Holden; ABC; ASC?

    All Glory to the Imaginary Alpha-male in the Sky that the Prime Knee-Bender affirms the hopes and dreams of the folk of SA. It'd be just terrible if he didn't like us for voting in ... Oh. OK.

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  9. Why on earth would Dame Slap think that gouging Our ABC was a vote winner? She is as deluded as the rest of the cheer squad in believing the the govt's problem is one of salesmanship rather than the product.

    People will buy something glossy from a pavement spruiker once but only the very dim will go back and buy the same item again when it has snapped clear in two.

    Getting back to the National Broadcaster. People like it. Surveys show time and time again that it leads the media in the honesty stakes. It is part of our culture.

    Janet correctly advises Abbott to stop telling lies. I suspect that is only because he has been caught out once too often.

    Miss Pitty Pat

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    Replies
    1. Janet doesn't think that, Miss PP. It's all part of the Murdoch Strategy. They don't have to believe it, they just have to argue it. Like high school debaters, they pick the opposition's arguments apart as best they can, irrespective of their personal beliefs.

      Delete
  10. No adverts, that is why people like the ABC. No adverts and that even the most one-eyed person (right or left) gets sick of an agenda being pushed all the time 24/7.

    Old Rupert won't be satisfied until the ABC is at the standard of community television. Foxtel is going to be in some strife if Netflix presents a valuable subscription model in the next year.

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  11. We're Better Than This ought to be the nucleus of a new Party.
    Years of Living Dangerously started on SBS last night. Great work by Tom Friedman (Yes, him!) on the drought that buggered northern Syria and led into the rebellion against Assad.

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  12. Turnbulls performance at question time has turned into a charade, not that it wasn't a charade before but, the man has really lost it
    This is what happens when you are constantlu attached to the teat of a Kool-aid bottle.
    His pathetic reasoning about savings, not cuts according to Mal, are now the complete fault of the previous ALP government. Seems to be singing from the same murdockian page of IPA tunes.

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  13. Wasn't the government going to go for a double dissolution if it's agenda wasn't passed, no questions asked?
    Just another broken promise, eh?

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  14. "Selective reading of facts is hypocrisy" says Sheehan, the man who promoted the magic water scam.

    Priceless!

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