Lawrence Money, Pauline Hanson, and don't send in the clowns, they're already here ...

(Above: isn't she lovely).

Does Lawrence Money really exist?

With a cashed up name like that, you'd swear it was a pseudonym for an arriviste or noveau riche wannabe. But The Age seems to be extremely proud to have him in its stable, and gives him a handsome journalistic pedigree:

Lawrence Money is one of the longest-serving columnists in Australia, starting in 1979 with The Melbourne Herald’s In Black And White column and going on to write the daily Tattler, The Sunday Age Spy column and the Diary in the daily Age. He now writes the 'Money’s Melbourne' and 'Monday Musings' columns in The Age and the Modern Times blog on-line for the National Times. Lawrence began his career at The Sun News-Pictorial (now Herald-Sun) in 1968. The elder son of the late Doris Van Der Hagen, The Weekly Times' longest-serving Miranda columnist, Lawrence has twice won the Melbourne Press Club's Quill award as Victoria's best columnist. Lawrence has been on the professional speaking circuit, a regular on ABC radio, has written five books, invented the top-selling board game ‘Holiday’, and writes a monthly column in the RACV magazine, Royalauto. (here).

It's hard to imagine better qualifications if you went in search of a champagne sipping, chardonnay swilling, latte gargling caricature of a Melbourne git.

Which is why his effort in Three cheers for Pauline Hanson is such a wondrous effort in self-loathing. Seeing as how he surely must be credentialed as a member of the Melbourne journalistic intelligentsia.

The thing I liked most about ex-MP Pauline Hanson was that she got up the nose of the self-acclaimed ‘‘intelligentsia’’.

What a relief. It seems Money isn't part of the intelligentsia, isn't an intellectual, isn't a brain, is in fact proudly a dipstick and a dodo. Perhaps it's just the self-acclaimed bit that makes being intelligent a problem? Like if somebody else acclaims Money for his intelligence and intellect and insight, that would be okay. He wouldn't be a self-acclaimed intelligent person, just someone as sharp as a tack?

You know, those snooty media know-alls and political ‘‘experts’’ who think they know what’s best for everybody else -- the eggheads who wallow in the smug belief that their mental processes are vastly superior to the rest of us ignorant citizens of Voterville.

Does he mean the ones who get regularly published under the banner of The Age, and are proudly acclaimed as one of the longest serving columnists in Australia? Has he been an ignorant member of Voterville for that long?

Pauline really got under the skin of the ‘‘intelligentsia’’ which was why, when she announced this week that she was leaving Australia, she was called (among other things) a ‘‘drongo’’.

What, and not stolidus? Sheesh, the intelligentsia must be losing it these days. Using common or garden Australian slang, like common or garden members of Voterville. No colour or movement. Just drongo! Is that the best they can do? Not even caudex assinus?

How about 'a few clowns short of a circus', or 'an experiment in artificial stupidity', or 'the wheel's spinning but the hamster's dead', or 'not the coldest beer in the fridge', or 'one fruit loop shy of a full bowl', or 'all foam, no beer, or 'couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel', or 'one neurone short of a synapse'.

Oops, got distracted there, antenna not picking up all the channels. Back to Money:

Honestly, the ‘‘intelligentisa’’ even refer to themselves as ‘‘intelligentsia’’ (just read The Monthly magazine) or even ‘‘elites’’ but despite all their sneering and jeering, all the cracks about fish and chips and ‘‘please explain’’, Aussies just kept voting for Hanson.

So much so, that after winning a council seat in the grand city of Ipswich in 1994, Hanson was endorsed as Liberal candidate for Oxley, and when disendorsed, won the seat in 1996. Seizing the moment, her One Nation party won 11 out of 89 seats in 1998 in Queensland, the land of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, but by 1999, it was all over, with support for One Nation down from 22 to 5% and Hanson out of a seat. And despite a few attempts, never able to get back in.

It was little more than a three year circus, and ever since then it's been a media circus. And for a media circus, you need a few enthusiastic clowns. Back to Money:

This drove the ‘‘intelligentsia’’ even madder because Pauline, even though she failed to win a seat at her last few attempts, kept getting enough votes to earn a big refund pay-out from the Government. It might be the law but HOW DARE SHE!

Indeed. How dare she.

Hanson was like an unsinkable ship: they thought they had scuttled her but she kept bobbing to the surface. Of course, that was the fault of those ignorant fools, the voters. What did they know?

Oh yes, those ignorant fools the voters. How dare they vote for Bec Cartwright ahead of Hanson in Dancing with the Stars. It still stings.

Not that we're saying Hanson couldn't dance, couldn't do politics, or even write a coherent, intelligent book (unless you consider The Truth is that aboriginal women ate their babies and tribes cannibalised their members, which presumably means Alexander Pearce was full of indigenous genes).

But I guess if you're a celebrity, the clincher you need is a set of nude photos right?

The media sheep took up the chase. News Ltd hated her so much they ran ‘‘nude photos’’ of her around the time of the Queensland election last year, without making sure they WERE her. They weren’t. ‘‘Sorry’’ said the Sunday Telegraph editor limply.

The Sunday Telegraph is part of the intelligentsia? Fuck me dead. So much for the intelligentsia in Australia. Brains in the gutter, and with the minds of ten year old boys. But I do thank Money for making my day. Calling Chairman Rupert's minions part of the intelligentsia could only come from a rarefied intellect vastly superior to mine. A true member of the intelligentsia. Because you see you have to be media sheep to be part of the intelligentsia.

Can't quite follow that? Sheesh, don't tell me you're another one with the cables connected, no voltage, and the IQ of a house plant. Next time pick an elevator that goes all the way to the top floor, get the sharpest tool from the shed, and stop providing proof evolution can go in reverse.

So why did the ‘‘intelligentsia’’ hate Hanson? Well, from the moment she made her maiden speech in 1996, she dared to tilt at their holy grails. Hanson (horrors!) said the Aboriginal hand-out industry was biased against whites and was harming, not helping, the indigenous people. And she had a go at ATSIC, the cosy little organisation run by white Aboriginals who lived like kings. ‘‘I am calling for ATSIC to be abolished,’’ she told Parliament. (SCREECH!YOU CAN’T SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT ABORIGINALS, HANSON!!)

Oh dear, Money is a caps ironist. And manages to use the adjective 'aboriginal' as a descriptor noun for 'Aborigine'. Sadly, we have to immediately revoke Money's membership of the intelligentsia. Perhaps we can still him allow membership to the media sheep club.

And she dared to ask whether multiculturalism really was the magnificent Utopia of blended human harmony that was portrayed. (SCREECH! YOU CAN’T QUESTION THE MULTICULTURAL CAMELOT, HANSON!)

Oh no, more caps. But we can see that Money is a fierce contender for a place in the British National Party, which has already said it would welcome Hanson, rather than treat her as an immigrant sponger. (British far-right leader welcomes Hanson). Though no doubt Money is shattered and in tears that the BNP has just approved a new constitution which allows people of all ethnicities to become members. (Can the BNP change its spots?). Will it ever be the same ... Brit ...?

Never mind, back to Money, who is triumphant in his own lunchtime:

But guess what? And in the end they DID scrap ATSIC, a great gravy train that gorged itself to death. And Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson later agreed that welfare WAS killing his people.
What about multiculturalism? Problems galore there -- from attacks on Indians (that the authorities deny is happening) to roaming ethnic gangs of like the ‘‘Noble Park Bosnians’’. Hanson wanted ‘‘our immigration policy radically reviewed’’. The irony is that she is heading for Britain where multiculturalism has had mixed success. As one writer asked last year: ‘‘Is Multiculturalism killing Brit

Is multiculturalism killing Brit ...? And then silence. The lights have gone out in Europe, and in Money's column. That's right, the sentence incomplete, Money perhaps sprawled over The Age sundial like Mr Burns, and a game of cluedo ready to being ...

Did they snaffle him just as he was about to reveal the truth to the world? Did the intelligentsia nobble him? Did some sub say 'oh enough with the frothing and the foaming already'? Was he stricken as he attempted heroically to finish the word 'Britain' by a horde of blacks and migrants? Just like the British at Rorke's drift when the stout hearted lads full of pluck taught the Zulus a lesson in killing.

Strangely enough it's hard to care. If you want the views and insights on offer from the BNP, you can head off to its website. Take a bath towel, and a good cleansing soap.

As to Money, it's amazing a rag like The Age publishes such amazingly insightful rants from one of the Melbourne intelligentsia media sheep. Truly loon pond is blessed ...

(Below: gad sir, the gatling's jammed, there's a hush in the close, last man in and a match to win, do your best for Brit ...).