Piers Akerman, Chairman Rudd, and the joys of ranting without hindrance or substance

There's no doubt that Chairman Kevin Rudd is an extremely boring and irritating politician. He's a reincarnation of John Howard, who makes John Howard look - in the safety of retrospective contemplation - like a radical activist with a vision of a country dedicated to power walking.

But if there's one good reason to have to endure Chairman Rudd, it's for the sheer hysteria he induces in the likes of Pier Akerman. Poor old Akker Dakker regularly works himself up into a frothing and foaming flailing about, and this Sunday's strident rant - a kind of epic of Gilgamesh or a modern day Grendel with monster - is a classic, fittingly entitled Rudd rants have no substance.

Now rather than do a tedious detailed textual examination, let's just do a gloss of the highlights, though perhaps it's wise to set the tone with the opener:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may have moved to The Lodge but, intellectually, he has not left the confines of the gutter-crawling Queensland ALP and the small-minded inner circles of the document-shredding Goss Labor government.

Okay on with the substance-filled gutter crawl. A small man with a deeply flawed character ... a narcissist, though neuro-diagnosticians prefer the term 'malignant narcissism' .... extremely self-absorbed ... intolerant of others perspectives ... insensitive to others' needs ... indifferent to their own egocentric behaviour ... wishful claim to global innovator absolutely no basis ... ignorant revisionism with rant suited to fringe website inhabited by the silver-foil hat-wearing members of the lunar Left ... attempted write out of the history books of the globally admired reforms of Hawke, Keating, Howard and Costello ... breathtaking arrogance caught out almost everyone including the author of the book he was launching ...

Phew time for a para break.

Playing to the weakest intellects in the Labor fold ... totally dishonest claim ... neo-liberalism boogyman (well I prefer that spelling to bogeyman) ... but wait let's pause for a classic in full:

Neo-liberalism is something of a bogeyman to Rudd. It consumes him though, in all probability, he has never met a neo-liberal in his life as they are extremely rare worldwide and almost without representation in Australia.

Howard was never a neo-liberal and it is triumph for Rudd’s malicious mendacity that he can brazenly attempt to smear his predecessor with that label in public at a media function.

Now we pause for a message from our sponsor, Mr. Smirk, Peter Costello:

Mr Costello said Mr Rudd was not part of the defining economic moments of the past 20 years which included lowering tariffs, floating the dollar and tax reform.

"Neo-liberalism was quite good when (former Labor prime minister) Hawke and (former Labor treasurer and prime minister) Keating were practising it, but bad when Howard and Costello practised it," he told ABC Radio on Friday.

Oops, that sounds like a malicious mendacious smear. Hey ho, on we go:

Brazen untruths is the polemicist's (and Rudd's) modus operandi (not that Akker Dakker is in any way shape or form a polemicist. Still it's another classic, so let it have room and air:

... stating brazen untruths is the polemicist’s (and Rudd’s) modus operandi. Barely a day passes that Rudd does not engage in polemics, makes a false claim or attempt to disown his own promises and guarantees.

Working families worse off, employers higher costs, on a hiding to nothing, so-called reforms, everyone worse off, Costello says in state of denial, never held an economic brief, signing of Kyoto, the disingenuous and ineffectual sorry day, the 2020 rear-vision conference, stunts with no substance, can't come clean on current fiscal crisis, dangerously taking the economy down, ignoring sub-prime crash no parallel here. Please, oh please, make more room for one more classic:

Further, the sub-prime disaster was not a neo-liberal creation, as he tries to portray it, but the logical outcome of disastrous left-wing policies that saw loans given to people who simply could not afford them.

Hah, I knew it. That bloody George Bush and his cronies - dangerous subversive commie socialistic pinko perverts, the lot of them. Full of disastrous left-wing policies. Look at Afghanistan - tried to do a Russia there for starters. As if the United States could afford a couple of wars or any kind of regulation of the financial system.

And now let's leave it to Piers to do the wrap-up:

Rudd promised to be no less than John Howard-lite before the 2007 election. Now that his ego demands he distance himself from the admirable Howard legacy, he can only denigrate those who helped secure Australia’s financial future and enable it to withstand the fallout from the fiscal crisis when it reached our shores.

It is, indeed, a small man who cannot give praise when praise is due, so it is no surprise a midget of Rudd’s proportion needs an extra tall soapbox from which to malign those of true achievement.

Oh I say, steady old man. What have midgets ever done to you? I know being politically incorrect is refreshing and even liberating, but remember In Bruges:

Ray: A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. The disproportionate, I meant. I heard of Billy Chase offed on Fantasy Island. I think somebody offed on Time Bandits. I suppose they must get really sad about like being really little and that people looking at them, laughing at them, calling them names. You know, short arse. There's another famous midget. I miss him but I can't remember. It's not the R2D2 man; no, he's still going. I hope your midget doesn't kill himself. Your dream sequence will be fucked.

Chloë: He doesn't like being called a midget. He prefers dwarf.
Ray: This is exactly my point! People going around calling you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf. Of course you're going to blow your head off.

Yes, please, let's call Chairman Rudd a dwarf if we're going to employ (and so impugn) the vertically challenged as a kind of amoral insult.

For a man who hates rants without substance, Akker Dakker's sure is a sterling rant, a first class endeavor, a tremendous expression of hatred, fear and loathing, of a most bilious kind. It's rare to get this kind of quality bile outside a degenerate liver, and for that we have to thank ... it almost goes without saying ... Chairman Rudd.

Boy did he stir the possums and did the possums get stirred.

Well that's the Sunday buzz done and dusted, but I just have one nagging doubt ... is this kind of rant the result of Akker Dakker's exposure to the screen culture of the ABC? Could his plastic brain have been given a fantastic re-shaping by turning up in that den of socialists? Has his computer generated strange cosmic rays that have penetrated his aluminium foil hat?

Who knows, but it's fun. Sure it's sound and fury signifying nothing but hatred of Rudd, but as Susan Greenfield warns, that's all we can expect in these end times as video games blight the best minds of a generation ...

And speaking about In Bruges, one of my favorite films in recent times, why not let it do a closer as well:

Chloë: There's never been a classic movie made in Bruges until now.
Ray: Of course there hasn't. It's a shithole.
Chloë: Bruges is my home town, Ray.
Ray: Well, it's still a shithole.
Chloë: It's not a shithole!
Ray: What? Even midgets have to take drugs to stick it.
Chloë: Okay. So, you've insulted my home town. You were doing really well, Raymond. Why don't you tell me some Belgium jokes while you're at it?
Ray: Don't know any Belgium jokes, and if I did I think I'd have the good sense not to...hang on. Is Belgium with all those child abuse murders lately? I do know a Belgium joke. What's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.
[Ray sees Chloe's shocked expression]
Ray: What?
Chloë: One of the girls they murdered was a friend of mine.
Ray: [after a long pause, feeling bad] I'm sorry, Chloe.
Chloë: One of the girls they murdered wasn't a friend of mine. I just wanted to make you feel bad. And it worked! Quite well.

Almost as well as Chairman Rudd. And now for a handy hint about tin foil help to save you from Akker Dakker and Susan Greenfield ...

(Below: a full handy guide with detailed pdf is available here, but if in a rush, this should suffice. Remember, always have the shiny side pointing out so as to more effectively reflect the psychotronic radiation coming at you from the computer screen. Best practice requires a shiny side inward layer as well so that precious brain waves, as well as precious bodily fluids, are contained within the body. See site for full details, especially the danger of alpha wave harmonics resulting in memory loss and pseudo-religious visions).