Greg Craven, Tony Abbott, blue heeler mongrels, and a host of buzzing blowflies

(Above: the lady and the tramps).

The last time Greg Craven graced these pages, it involved an outburst against atheists and atheism of stupendously silly proportions.

A plague of atheists has descended, and Catholics are the target was the header, and the dear boy managed to garner some 331 comments, such was the ferocity of his folly:

Just now, we are facing one of our largest and least appealing infestations. Somewhat in advance of summer's blowflies, we are beset by atheists. Worse, they are not traditional atheists. These tended to be quiet blokes called Algie with ancillary interests in nudist ceramics, who were perfectly happy as long as you pretended to accept a pamphlet in Flinders Lane.

No, the new hobby atheist is as brash, noisy and confident as a cheap electric kettle.

On and on he went in a way that reminded me not so much of a cheap electric kettle as the old chip burning heater we used to have in the bathroom, which always seemed to be on the verge of exploding - followed, as it turned out, by a roaring gas burner which also seemed like it was about to explode. Give me a cheap electric kettle any day.

But that was yesterday, and the new gas burning Greg Craven is much quieter, in a clever dissembling, disingenuous way.

His subject is Tony Abbott - god will we be sick of the subject of Tony Abbott by end of week - and what a wondrous, marvellous beast he is, and how people should forget he's a Catholic, as outlined in Is Abbott the Liberal equivalent of Latham on amphetamines?

Then there is Abbott's much vaunted Catholicism. Listening to his critics here is rather like a nostalgia round, where we reprise the fears of rapid Republicans that John F. Kennedy would be taking his orders, if elected, direct from the Vatican.

Rapid? We presume he means rabid, but who knows. But see the cleverness? Tony Abbott could be John F. Kennedy in drag. Never mind that Kennedy was in fact a rampant fuck machine - he'd fuck anything that moved, including women involved with the mob and actresses - and he had the freewheeling ways of many wealthy Massachusetts Boston Irish Catholics. And he was a liberal, or at least what passed for a liberal in the early nineteen sixties. (here). A bit like the Liberals on view in the dissolute world of advertising Mad Men.

Mentioning Abbott in the context of Kennedy is wish fulfilment of the highest water. So let's get back to the dissembling:

Of course Abbott has values; of course many of these are Catholic values; and of course these will, from time to time, enter his policy consciousness. But everyone else has values, too. Whether you are a Catholic, a Mormon, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an agnostic or an atheist, your religious or non-religious world view is going to influence your understanding of a whole range of issues.

So we should let those atheist blowflies have a go? Or how about the Muslims? Want a minaret built in your back yard or in Switzerland? Or perhaps we should encourage the Australian population to embrace the peculiar dress sense of Mormons? (here for your update on Mormon underwear).

Whatever you do, don't worry about the Catholics. No, no, no, they're not going to try on anything. Why Stephen Conroy only wants to save the children with his internet filter, and Chairman Rudd only wants to talk at fundamentalist Christian chinwag conferences to warn them of the dangers of atheist blowflies being about in the land, and everybody wants gay marriage and rights for women, because they've arrived at a consensus.

Just like that free wheeling free thinking Tony Abbott:

But none of Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard or Malcolm Turnbull is going to run government as a wholly owned subsidiary of their own theocratic or anti-theocratic predilections. In the first place, it would not occur to them to try. In the second, they would be butchered, first by their colleagues, then by the electorate.

Um, so Abbott is for gay marriage, and the rights of women?

Consequently, there is nothing particularly sinister in Abbott visiting his spiritual adviser before tilting for the Liberal leadership. Indeed, if it had been his personal trainer, his doctor or certainly his psychiatrist, we would not even have noticed.

Golly, did his personal trainer tell him of his desire to reintroduce 'at fault' divorce proceedings as a way of differentiating gay marriage from traditional heterosexual marriage? Did his psychiatrist suggest that women shouldn't be allowed to control their bodies in relation to say abortion or birth control procedures? Did his doctor suggest that homosexual marriage was a serious threat to civilization as we know it? Did all three get together over drinks and warn about the dangers of condoms as a threat to the breeding of new recruits for the papists?

Ah yes, it's all just a small storm in a tea cup to the clever dissembling spin doctor, so how about the ultimate spin, with googly joke?

So Abbott may or may not be a successful Liberal leader. But Canberra will still be there in the morning. Unfortunately.

Ah yes, as men of the world, we can make a cheap snide joke about everything. Canberra is fucked, and politicians are fucked, and say what you will, Tony Abbott might be fucked, but so is everyone and everything else in that godforsaken dump Canberra.

You know, there's a lot to be said for the buzzing of blowflies, but a lot less for the buzzing of those buzzing about blowflies.

The rest of Craven's dreary piece is a hard polish of the Tony Abbott apple so that the unsuspecting might take a bite, have a taste:

As leader, Abbott will work from a much wider palette than he did as one of John Howard's favourite ministers. He will need to form a consensus both within his party and the community. Abbott will not give up his political principles, but he is likely to prove much more pragmatic and consultative in their application than Labor might hope and the right-thinking might fear.

Why he's Mr Consensus himself, right down the middle. Dearie me, whatever was Peter Hartcher thinking when he wrote Underdog just raring to unleash the Mongrel within:

The overriding instinct guiding the alternative prime minister so far? Combativeness.

Malcolm Turnbull was an aggressive Opposition leader.

But Abbott, the onetime Oxford boxing blue, is so full of fight he sets a new benchmark...

... he is an underdog who, as Mark Latham said yesterday, has "mongrel" in him.

Mad dog Mark Latham thinks Abbott has the mongrel of a blue heeler cross?

Golly, how is Craven going to get him to settle, and round up the sheep in the back paddock in a consultative, consensual way?

On the issue of politics, there is no denying that Abbott is on the conservative wing of the party and supported such Howardite artefacts as WorkChoices. But to type him as an instinctive reactionary is misleading.

Yep, in the usual way, by mis-labelling and deceptive humbuggery, so that it becomes misleading to tag an instinctive reactionary as ... an instinctive reactionary.

Why Tony Abbott is just a loveable rogue:

Abbott undeniably makes no attempt to hide an earthy exterior - bicycle gear and distressingly pygmy bathers included. He does address nearly everyone as ''mate'', possibly including his mother and pet guinea pig.

But he also is capable of considerable genuine charm, is possessed of a sensitive personal conscience and actually seems to care about the individuals with whom he comes into contact. This is unusual among typically egocentric politicians. If he ever manages to convey this reality to a ballot box, he could be dangerous.

Indeed he could be dangerous, because once in power, who knows what this loveable larrikin rogue, calling 'mate, mate' like some bloody left wing maddie, might get up to - in the same way as one look at mad dog Mark Latham made any sensible middle of the road flinch away from the many exciting and dangerous possibilities of a Lathamite reign (hence the dull as ditchwater Chairman Rudd the banana republic had to have, once the tremendously dull man of steel made his way to the exit doors).

And to prove his deep sincerity, Craven leads with the oldest ploy of all. He agrees to disagree:

Mind you, I thoroughly disagree with all three books, and in the last, Battlelines, he attacks quite a lot of my own writing. Who cares? They are the well-written product of a thoughtful mind.

So Abbott's intellectual credentials are beyond reproach and he certainly compares favourably in this respect with most of his Liberal and Labor opponents.

Yes, okay, you thoroughly disagree with him and everything he stands for, but he's a wonderful human bean, and tremendously consensual. So would you vote for him, you buzzing blowfly goose?

Sounds like it. According to the holy Craven script, Abbott is an outstanding debater, and hate his politics or not, an effective minister, and he's written three full-length books! Three. And not your short efforts, but full-on full length. Never mind the quality, feel the width and the length. And he stands for something. Never mind what he actually stands for, he stands for something. Why he might stand for all the lemmings running off the cliff, but at least we know he stands for something, and he knows the direction. To the cliff:

Whatever your view on climate change or emissions trading, Abbott clearly does unequivocally stand for something and is prepared to lead in that direction.

Yes, indeedy, he clearly stands for 'climate change is crap'. Oh wait, that was last week, this week he stands for climate change needing a carefully considered policy which won't cost anyone anything and we can all go along much as we are now.

And now we're at the nub of it, the heart and soul of the quisling apologist called Craven. First the conundrum:

He's already scared the chooks, but there's little to get in a flap about.

It is often said that if you cannot get people to like you, the best course is to scare them absolutely witless. This approach always works for dentists and scorpions. On this basis, new Liberal leader Tony Abbott should be quietly pleased with his first day's work. Reading the better papers and listening to the better radio stations, it is clear he has aroused the sort of apprehension usually reserved for pit bull terriers.

Abbott is, apparently, aggressively stupid. He is a nasty yob. He is a troglodytic right-winger. Perhaps, worst of all, he is a rabid Catholic.

Dentists? You mean those poor souls that have a high suicide rate? Scorpions? The ones with the curved tail that carries a deadly sting? Pit bull terriers? The ones that monster helpless children and old women. Sold! I'll take that kind of apprehension about the mad monk.

Shush baby, rock a bye, the tree ain't gonna fall. Comes the calm soothing answer to the conundrum of the kind that the Jesuits used to offer me when I wondered how god might have let the Holocaust happen:

So is Abbott as bad and as mad as his detractors would suggest? Is he really the Liberal equivalent of Mark Latham on methamphetamine? The short answer is no. The long answer is don't be so bloody silly.

Er actually no one said he was Mark Latham on meth. Just being a mongrel Mark Latham would be bad enough. The short answer is the dissembling is designed to sooth the savage breast, the tormented soul. And the long answer is that if Craven thinks this kind of Jesuitical dissembling will work, he's being bloody silly, or worse, a goose like Miranda the Devine.

But then Craven seems to be obsessed with methamphetamine:

The second wearying thing about the new atheism is that it is not new at all. It is so banally derivative of every piece of hate mail ever sent to God that I am amazed Satan has yet to sue for copyright infringement. No old chestnut is too ripe, rotten or sodden, especially when it comes to the Catholics as accredited suppliers of what apparently is the Christian equivalent of methamphetamine.

Always with the meth! Enough already.

Well we shall see what we shall see. Me? I prefer speed if you want to stay up all night and get the teeth grinding.

Meantime, it's up to Abbott as to whether he can change his socially conservative Catholic Pellist spots in a way that can be sold to the voting public, and women in particular. Hard work for a leopard, a tough job for an Abbott.

But the kind of contrived apologist claptrap led by Craven makes me fear for the worst. At least Craven was being petulantly, childishly honest when he abused atheists up hill and down dale, and accused them of deep hatred of Christians:

At the bottom, of course, lies hate. I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate.

Well allow me to politely dismiss - since I plainly can't ignore - his furtive ramblings about what a nice man Tony Abbott is. The papists are everywhere, and they deserve what ever cleverness, wittiness, funniness and mockery we can muster ... because a plague of Catholics has descended and hapless atheists and women and homosexuals are their target ...

Now a little reading from Chaucer:

And after that, the abbot with his covent
Han sped hem for to burien hym ful faste;
And whan they hooly water on hym caste,
Yet spak this child, whan spreynd was hooly water,
And song O Alma redemptoris mater!

Oh yes, remind me to have a glass of chardonnay tonight, and toast the Wife of Bath, who dared to challenge all the occult misogyny that littered the medieval ages, and still litters the Virgin Mary worshipping papists (here)

Or should I follow Greg Craven's advice to hit the meth and crank up the fear? Or the munchies?

Questions, questions, always the questions ...