Janet Albrechtsen, Tony Abbott, and a love which no one should dare to speak of, at least in public ...

(Above: oh Tony, oh Janet. But hang on, isn't that Geraldine Fitzgerald with Heathcliff? Once she gets married to the fickle cad, doesn't she lead a thoroughly miserable life? Marry in haste, repent in leisure, my mammy always told me).

A gust of nausea swept over me today - or perhaps the kind of shiver you get at the thought of someone walking on your grave - and it happened while reading Janet Albrechtsen, as it usually does.

Hairy-chested candour will win Tony Abbott hearts was the theme, and in the course of it, Albrechtsen attempted to become one of the 'girls'. It was like watching an elephant try to dance, in a very clumsy way, or a shark pretend to be part of a school of whiting, or a pirana pretend it had no interest in a prime slice of beef, or perhaps worst of all, a politician pretending that above all politics isn't about politics and power.

Here's the giveaway lines:

In an era when the personality -- or branding -- of a political leader is important, try telling me, girls, that this mix is not even a little bit fascinating...

... Be honest, girls. Abbott has caught your attention in a way that Rudd never did. Or will. Whether that translates into votes for Abbott is another matter. But watch that space too.

Oh dear, she thinks she's one of the girls, in a girlie club, where girlies can talk girl talk, and speculate about just how manly and beguiling and attractive Tony Abbott is.

In what perhaps is one of the most nauseating love letters ever to find its way into print and so into the public domain, Albrechtsen devotes her entire column to the wonders and charms of Abbott, as a way of rebutting Mia Freedman's ironic response to his elevation to the Liberal leadership: "What a great day for women! PS, Libs are you on crack?"

The highlight of Albrecthsen's policy driven rebuttal, aimed to drive girlies into the Abbott camp?

... for completeness sake and because we are all human, there is no point avoiding the other thing that differentiates Abbott. Fit and50-something, the runner, cyclist and former boxer in a pair of Speedos with a "love rug" is also a rarity in politics. On that note, I'm counting on more than a few women agreeing with Nigella Lawson, the curvy kitchen guru, who said: "I like an animal. Hairy back, hair everywhere. I don't understand why a woman would want a hairless man. If I was to go for smooth, I may as well be lesbian."

WTF? If you were to go for hair, you might as well be a homosexual infatuated with bears.

Here's how to code a bear, so you can better communicate with bear lovers.

Here's a short history of bears, so you can better understand bear culture.

But I digress. I happen to be bi-sexual. Give me a bear one day, give me a smoothie the next, and if I'm doing the banking, just give me a banana smoothie and I'll swallow anything.

That said, just because Albrechtsen writes a gormless love letter, we should still look seriously at the policy issues she raises in her column, since after all, all girls agree that it isn't the man that's important, so much as the politics. Why some girls are even politicians, and I always assess their policies on the basis of their sex appeal.

Oops, sorry about that. We wouldn't want to be making ad hominen or ad girlie attacks, or ad hominem gooey love letters.

Sorry, the bit about the bears is as deep as it gets.

Let's put the Abbott policies to one side for now. There's plenty of time to pursue those down the track.

Put the policies to one side? WTF. Politics is all about personalities? We're into the cult of the personalities? What kind of crack does she use, because I want some of it.

The immediate contrast is between the political personalities of Abbott and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. While marketing gurus were quick to describe Abbott asnext year's marketing challenge, they also recognise his appeal. He has something that is rare in the hermetically sealed, carefully controlled politico-bubble of Canberra. It's called authenticity. And I'm betting women kind of like that. Sure, some will never admit it openly. Aghast, they will tell you that his religious convictions about abortion, RU486 and stem-cell research jar with a modern girl's feminist choices. But sure enough, many of these same women may find themselves muttering quietly among their closest girlfriends that, secretly, they find Abbott attractive.

Authenticity? As in authentic cad? Attractive, in a secret, furtive way? The kind of yearning for a priestly man that drove The Thornbirds to international success? The fainting desire for that which we cannot have?

Yep, it's the oldest of sado-masochistic rituals, beloved of the Catholic church and cilice wearers everywhere. He might be terrible that Heathcliff, but what a spunk.

Hang on, doesn't it all end in tears in Wuthering Heights, with Heathcliff in rigor mortis and the window open and rain pouring through it, and buried in the graveyard next to Catherine, and Edgar next to her?

Surely, but I digress. Back to the hero-worshipping love letter:

While Abbott is known in today's neutered world of politicsfor his off-the-cuff clangers, he is also a complicated mass of contradictions and human failings. The antithesis of the political nerd, he is a head-kicker with a brain and a heart. Sounds kind of interesting, doesn't it? He was the Rhodes scholar to Oxford who won boxing championships and earned a masters degree in politics and philosophy. He was the young man who deserted his ambition to become a priest when he "saw the dark" and he has candidly admitted that discovering sex and politics denied him a "direct relationship with Jesus". He was the young Catholic man who thought he fathered a child with his high-school sweetheart.

Sounds kind of interesting, doesn't it? Oh you condescending hound from hell ...

Oh go on, kick my head, I love to have my head kicked, provided you do it with a brain and a heart. Hurt me, hurt me in any way you like, fuck me over every which way you can imagine. I'll do anything you say, anything at all, just give me some of that rich Catholic thinking. Women are the empty vessels, they need men to fill them up and to complete them, I worship on my knees ... and so on and so forth ...

Next comes the 'disarming candour' and the 'humour' and the 'grace' Abbott showed when he discovered he'd fathered a child who worked at the ABC except he hadn't fathered a child, the kind of soap opera best left to The Days of our Lives.

Few politicians are forced to share their most personal and emotionally wrought life experiences in this way. Abbott did so with dignity and honesty that even the most hardened political opponent -- man or woman -- had to admire.

Well actually no, I get nauseated when people fail to distinguish between private lives and public policies and political activities, as in the case of Mike Rann, or in the case of Abbott, and his narcissist living of his life in a confessional way in the public eye. I guess that makes me hardened. Because all I want is the policies, neat, like overproof rum, without the milk or the bullshit or the sickening chat about sex appeal.

Try lining up the men in Canberra. Now look for the one who is the quintessential Aussie bloke -- a volunteer fire fighter and surf lifesaver, plays sport, drinks beer and says bullshit -- and simultaneously a savvy politician who lands blows in parliament and writes books on philosophical and political matters in his spare time. That's Abbott.

Oh please. Says bullshit makes you the quintessential Aussie bloke? Bullshit to that. Writes Catholic philosophical bullshit in his spare time? Why on earth should I take Catholic bullshit any more seriously than any other kind of religious bullshit?

And so we come back to the girlies:

In an era when the personality -- or branding -- of a political leader is important, try telling me, girls, that this mix is not even a little bit fascinating. Compared with, say, Rudd. The Prime Minister presents as a bureaucrat full of complicated, contorted language. He is spin personified, with every phrase brainstormed by teams of advisers. So carefully controlled is his exterior, few have any idea about the real Rudd. He could not be more different from the new Opposition Leader.

The real Rudd? You gherkin dipstick. Rudd is a bureaucrat full of complicated, contorted language in English and Mandarin. Is that so hard to understand? That's the real fucking Rudd. A man with a carefully controlled exterior, a capacity for rage and temper amongst insiders, well reported in lengthy detail, and a very common type of power seeker in Canberra. You don't like him? Fine, but leave off the mystical mumbo jumbo about the unknowable Rudd. Enough with the bullshit already. (Golly I'm feeling dinkum Aussie today).

What about his policies, isn't politics about the execution of policies, and the governing of the country? What about them? You know, like censoring the intertubes. Oh let's leave them to another time.

There are plenty of reasons why women may have looked askance at Abbott. He has allowed his religious convictions to enter the political sphere. But there is something rather reassuring about the married man with three daughters who admits, as he wrote in Battlelines, that "modern society is not a community of believers and the parliament is not the place to make rules for one".

Oh yes, pull the other one. Well I look forward to Tony Abbott and his team tearing down Senator Conroy's censorship of the intertubes, since modern society is not a community of believers and the parliament is not the place to make rules for the censoring of free speech. Let alone the other matters of morality on which Abbott has already shown his well-worn papist hand.

Dream on. But wait, there must be one last thought that will leave us chortling in the aisles:

Indeed, Abbott has also shown admirable qualities as the ultimate team player.

That's right, the man who just head kicked Malcolm to the outer is a team player, full of grace towards his defeated foe.

I'm sorry, I would have transcribed a little bit more, but at that point, I began to cack myself, and roll around on the carpet, laughing hysterically.

Then of course I sobered up, and realised what I'd just read.

It's very rare I come away from a column feeling dirty, grubby, like I've taken a dip in some kind of vegetable oil bath, or perhaps more like having just had a furtive fuck in a motel room, the kind of room Sir Billy Snedden was in when he died on the job with his trousers down in the Rushcutter Travelodge.

I don't mind if Janet Albrechtsen is having an affair with Tony Abbott, metaphysical of course, but does she have to write about it at length in The Australian? Surely some things are kept private these days, even amongst the 'girls'.

Oh and as for that talk of the girls, why doesn't she just shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I'm not one of her girls, and if I had a chance, the minute she said 'girl' to my face, I'd shove a grapefruit in her face.

Yep, let me tell you the thousand ways in which I can live without her nauseating girl talk. Boy, peel me a grapefruit.

(Below: Jimmy Cagney living out my Janet Albrechtsen dream, with Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy - more here).