Janet Albrechtsen, Chairman Rudd, and an authentically inauthentic debate ...

(Above: and just when we thought conservatives had an authentic understanding of the authentic Chairman Rudd).

Exactly who is Janet Albrechtsen?

You know, it's an odd question, but there's a real question mark at the end of any sentence about her:

And the question mark goes like this: Who is this woman, Janet Albrechtsen? It is an odd question because Albrechtsen has been scribbling away in newspapers for more than a decade, a member of various boards over the years, and has been a leading conservative light at The Australian for way more than two years.

We have had ample opportunity to watch her on television and listen to her on radio. Admittedly she doesn't seem to tweet. But she writes learned opinions about judicial activists. She spends her summers and winters writing long tomes to prove her intellectual worth, and the intellectual folly of those she dislikes. Albrechtsen has worked hard to ensure we are saturated with her media presence.

Yet the more we see of Albrechtsen, the less we really know about her. Significantly, Albrechtsen's personality is directly relevant to her scribbling and the policies she enunciates at The Australian. There is a sinking feeling with Albrechtsen that the inability to get a grasp of the woman behind the scribbles is simply a wider reflection of a woman who has very little real political conviction.

Hang on you say, that's not particularly meaningful or insightful, just a lot of blather and personal prejudice, directed at Albrechtsen, and possibly plagiaristic. And indeed it is, because this is how it really reads:

And the question mark goes like this: Who is this man, Kevin Rudd? It is an odd question because Rudd has been in parliament for more than a decade, a shadow minister for four years, and he has been leading the nation for more than two years.

We have had ample opportunity to watch him on television and listen to him on radio. He tweets. He writes children's books. He spends his summer writing long tomes to prove his intellectual worth. Rudd has worked hard to ensure we are saturated with his media presence.

Yet the more we see of Rudd, the less we really know about him. Significantly, Rudd's personality is directly relevant to his policies and his prime ministership. There is a sinking feeling with Rudd that the inability to get a grasp of the man behind the title is simply a wider reflection of a man who has very little real political conviction.

And there's a hell of a lot more of it in Kev the chamelion keeps on changing his colours, which establishes conclusively and at exhausting length that Janet Albrechtsen doesn't like Chairman Rudd.

Well you can see where this is heading. Authenticity. You know, in the way that Rudd is a nerdish socially conservative inauthentic dipstick, and Tony Abbott is a monastic socially conservative authentic dipstick.

But sssh, let's not mention Tony Abbott, let's veer right away into absurdity:

Think of Rudd's most recent predecessors. In public and private, leaders from Gough Whitlam to John Howard had an authenticity about them. Whether you loved or loathed Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating or Howard, in each case the more we saw, the better we understood them and their passions. The character of each of Rudd's predecessors was forged from a long history of political convictions and it defined their prime ministership.

Gough Whitlam authentic? The flashy Latin quoting lawyer berated by conservatives as a ponce as some kind of authentic passionate rugged Australian? Paul Keating, the mercurial French clock lover dispensing witticisms as he flies over Darwin on his way to Paris to listen to Mahler an authentic digger in Australian politics.

And please let's not go into the world of core and non-core promises. It's just too much.

The more we saw them, the better we understood them and their passions? And if a conservative commentator of the commentariat kind, like Albrechtsen, the more easily they could be reviled as inauthentic, dishonest, and in the case of French clocks and Mahler, positively un-Australian?

Yep, you know you're deep in gibberish, animus and personality animosity land, and it certainly helps to have a map to guide you through it. Fortunately we're equipped with a guide which allows us to decode the relevance of any statement:

Now consider Rudd. We know next to nothing about what truly motivates him, apart from seeking and staying in political office.

Now consider Albrechtsen. We know next to nothing about what truly motivates her, apart from seeking and staying in the business of political commentating.

We know he will morph into any character, no matter how unnatural, if he thinks it will boost his political prospects: whether it's trying to look cool to a newspaper editor by drinking in a New York girlie club, doing deals with Labor's left faction to win the leadership or extolling his credentials as an economic conservative in order to win over voters at the 2007 election, only to then turn into a long-winded critic of capitalism when it became the orthodoxy.

We know she will morph into any character, no matter how unnatural, if she thinks it will boost her political prospects: whether it's trying to look cool to a newspaper editor by mis-quoting Jean-Jacques Rassial, embracing climate change scepticism, or extolling her credentials as an economic conservative in order to win over John Howard, and get herself on to the board of the ABC, after an extensive period as a long-winded critic of the ABC as a haven for leftie socialists at the time when that was a mantra and an orthodoxy amongst conservatives.

By golly, this is fun, we could go on forever in the same vein. And naturally enough Albrechtsen does. There's the matter of Chairman Rudd on Sunrise, and Rudd on Q&A last week:

When the Twitter PM was grilled by the Twitter generation (in a way the Canberra press gallery has never managed), his awkward smile and contrived mannerisms simply betrayed a deeper phoniness not seen before from our political leaders. Not on top of his own policies and promises, Rudd worked so hard at the spin, he had no idea how to be himself.

Oh I can't resist. When Albrechtsen was grilled on Q&A (in a way the Canberra press gallery has never managed) her awkward smile and contrived mannerisms simply betrayed a deeper phoniness not seen before from our commentariat columnist. Not on top of her own prejudices and bile, Albrechtsen worked so hard at the spin, she had no idea how to be herself.

Oh dear, this is sounding a bit over the top. Perhaps now it's time for a little mea culpa?

Suggesting someone is a fake is a big call. It implies dishonesty and trickery. But perhaps it is something else. For an apparently clever woman, Albrechtsen's reliance on a steady stream of meaningless spin suggests a lack of confidence in her own intellect. Alternatively, her spin may be explained by arrogance that the people will be content with political rhetoric, an arrogance fuelled by her early success when her scribbles proved popular amongst conservatives. But more and more, people are looking a little closer at Albrechtsen. And after years of scribbling in The Australian, the phony nature of Albrechtsen's lexicon of political commentary is laid bare by the repetition of her rhetoric.

Yep, you guessed it, another mangled quote from Albrechtsen. But I'm sure you can go over the par, change a few words, fill in the gaps and apply it to Chairman Rudd. Or Tony Abbott. Or anyone else you don't like.

Oh I've got to stop, this can't go on.

One could go on. The problem with so much regurgitated rhetoric is that after a while people begin to notice how artificial it is. Most concerning for Rudd, they are noticing his government's climate change con.

Phew, that's a relief. We're on to an actual matter of policy.

But hang on how can a con artist talk about a con if the con artist thinks the con is a con?

Hasn't Albrechtsen been scribbling for years about the climate change con and political snake-oil salesmen? Since way before Climate promises so much hot air. Or long before her lovingly evoked assignation with Ian Plimer at the Hunter River hotel in Maitland, in A tale of two worlds:

This is not just about the debate over climate change and the need to keep an open mind before pursuing policies that will strangle industry and jobs. Plimer’s work points to a bigger question about the integrity of science. He says that we are fast abandoning the gains made in the Enlightenment: “We live in a time when the methodology of science is suspended.”

Oh indeed. Which no doubt explains why Albrechtsen, in Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot, managed to approvingly quote Lord Monckton on the deeper implications of the UN's plot to take over the world and bring out the black helicopters:

Monckton became aware of the extraordinary powers to be vested in this new world government only when a friend of his found an obscure UN website and hacked his way through several layers of complications before coming across a document that isn’t even called the draft treaty. It’s called a “note by the secretariat”. The moment he saw it, he went public and said: “Look, this is an outrage ... they have kept the sheer scope of this treaty quiet.”

Monckton says the aim of this new government is to have power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty...

...Now read the 181-page draft treaty. It is impossible to fully understand the convoluted UN verbiage. Yet even those incomprehensible clauses point to some nasty surprises that no politician has told us about. For example, Monckton says the drafters want this new world government to have control over once free markets: the financial and trading markets of nation-states. “The sheer ambition of this new world government is enormous right from the start; that’s even before it starts accreting powers to itself in the way that these entities inevitably always do,” he says.

Okay, so climate change is a con, the business of snake oil salesmen, or worse, on a more sinister level, an attempt to take over the entire world! How to spin this around so it bites Chairman Rudd, the inauthentic one, on the bum?

Any number of times, the PM has said that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our time. He says that enacting an emissions trading system is essential. He says it will be tough but his government is up to the task. He says the next election will be about climate change. Over the weekend, Rudd gave Labor MPs a pep talk about the importance of his ETS plans. Ergo, there is a simple test of Rudd's character and his commitment to this core policy.

If Rudd genuinely believes all that he has told us, he must surely call a double dissolution election to enact his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme when it is rejected by the Senate again. Even if the Rudd government is returned at a regular election, a Labor win will not necessarily alter the opposition in the Senate. Only a double dissolution election has the potential to save his CPRS.

He must call a double dissolution election to enact a policy which Albrechtsen believes is unnecessary, unwanted and unneeded? And if he doesn't call a double dissolution, right here, right now?

If he doesn't call a double dissolution election, we will know that Rudd's commitment to climate change, perhaps like the man himself, is a political sham. And when he leaves the political stage, many will still be asking the same question: Who was that man, Rudd?

But, but, but in logical terms that's so profoundly stupid as to be completely incomprehensible as an argument. Of the kind 'when did you stop beating your wife and decide therefore not to call a double dissolution?'

As if politics has to be conducted with noble sincerity. Like Malcolm Turnbull on climate change. And look where that got him. Presenting a policy endorsed by John Howard and the Liberal team. Go team.

After reading this guff, surely when Albrechtsen leaves the pages of The Australian, many will still be asking the same question: who was that woman, Albrechtsen?

Short answer? A raging social conservative, given to endless squawking, in much the same way as Chairman Rudd is a nerdish social conservative, given to simpering, and Tony Abbott is an action man jockish social conservative, given to deviously authentic inauthenticity.

How many words are needed to whip up an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a conundrum?

Oh okay, I stole that from Winston Churchill, but only in the cause of inauthenticity. He was speaking in a radio broadcast in October 1939:

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

Hang on, that works just as well:

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Albrechtsen/Rudd/Abbott (strike out that which does not apply). It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. that key is Albrechtsen's/Rudd's/Abbott's (strike out that which does not apply) concept of their national and personal interest."

(Below: speaking of chameleons. Does this image remind you most of Albrechtsen, Rudd or Abbott? Strike out that which does not apply. Next week the Rorschach test as a guide to the enigma of Australian politics).