In which Peter Costello proves poetry offers good advice easily ignored, and the good folk of Maine prove paranoia is more interesting ...

(Above: ah memories. But don't slam the door on your way out).

When I was a child, and thought as a child, I refused to put away childish things, and it was good and so and thus, and so I often still think like a child.

Blocking my ears and closing my eyes seems like a sensible way to deal with an ugly world.

And who hasn't looked around, and wished that someone might be disappeared to a cornfield, it's a good life style, so that things could stay quiet on the pond?

Take Peter Costello, the PM who never was. Surely it's time for him to disappear, but each time I click on the granny rags, there he is, reminding me of the urgent need for a paywall, or perhaps for each column to be accompanied by William Hughes Mearns' old poem:

Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

No such luck Billy Mearns. There's the old treasurer scribbling away at Swan's balancing act won't add up.

Well he would say that wouldn't he? A boring exercise in ego strutting and negativity worthy of a nattering nabob dedicated to negativism. (And thank you Spiro T. for having the decency to remember the line that William Safire wrote for you).

You know, in the old days, politicians had the decency to fade away, not hang around on the battlements, whinging and whining away like the ghost of Hamlet's dad.

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door

Tip the lid to John Howard. He tiptoed out the door, got on with his love of cricket, and didn't slam the door, well except for a few times here and there, in the odd speech or three.

By way of contrast, Costello can't let go, and now hangs around as a regular columnist in the manner of other frustrated former politicians, like Mark Latham and John Hewson.

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

The trouble of course is that everything Costello says is utterly predictable, and while it might have been fun in an ongoing jousting in the political bear pit, as a read it's lamentable. Boring, sullen, resentful, even when written with a smirk. And irrelevant.

Better to pay attention to Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott and the other bears still in the pit.

It also invites a standard response from readers:

Peter

Unless my memory is playing tricks with me, the political spin coming from Wayne Swan doesn't sound all that different from what we would get from you on Budget night.

Peter Costello - that name rings a bell - didn't you used to be some-one once?

Oh yes, he was someone once, he was a contender, and then his big brother, big Johnny sold him out, took the odds and did him down. Just like poor Marlon in On the Waterfront:

Petie: It wasn't him, big Johnny, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Malcolm." You remember that? "This ain't your night"! My night! I coulda taken Malcolm apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, big Johnny, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money.

Big Johnny: Oh I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.
Petie: You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, big Johnny, it was you.

Apologies to Budd Schulberg, who also wrote What Makes Petie Run?

Well enough of the coulda been a contender still hanging around like a wraith. For loon pond's odd spot, we turn to the good folks of Maine.

Republicans actually.

They've adopted a new platform and it's a wonder and a marvel. You can read about it here, which provides a link to here, which provides a link to the pdf of the platform here.

My favourite platform provision?

VI. To Secure the Blessings of Liberty:

a. Restore a vigorous grounding in the history and precepts of liberty, freedom, and the
constitution to the educational process. As Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
i. Eliminate the Department of Education and restore schools to local control as specified in the constitution.
b. Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.

That's the kind of thinking we need on the pond, as we valiantly combat a one world government, which we understand Chairman Rudd will head up once he's finished ruining Australia. Because of course once we have a one world government, the Ruddster will hand it over to the Martians, and the men will be herded into pens and the women... well the Martians will do awful things to the women, too hideous to mention here (did we mention that the Martians have octopus-like tentacles?)

And there's some handy tips to the people battling the oil spill down south:

i. Promote energy independence aggressively by removing the obstacles created by government to allow private development of our resources; natural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power.

Oh yes, pesky government and its interfering regulations and obstacles, which didn't work in the gulf anyway, so who needs them when it's the natural aggressive way to rape and pillage the environment and to heck with the consequences.

What's perhaps most engaging is the deep rich vein of paranoia embedded in the document:

h. Oppose any and all treaties with the UN or any other organization or country which surrenders US sovereignty. Specifically:

i. Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.
ii. Reject “LOST” the Law Of The Sea Treaty.

iii. Reject any agreement which seeks to confiscate our firearms.

Oh yes, damn that world government and its demand to respect the rights of the child while stealing firearms needed to plug varmints and riff raff and dry gulch nogoodniks and peaceniks.

How the heck will the two dollar stores of the United States get their goods if you can't employ a little child labour? Or militias make use of Uncle Sam manufactured weaponry if child soldiers can't use the guns?

And so on and so forth. It's the kind of thinking we cherish on the pond, and in marked contrast to the dullness of Peter Costello's scribbles.

Frankly if Costello wants to be featured in the future on the pond, he needs to muscle up, and deliver some hefty paranoia. Instead of this kind of rhetoric about Swannie's budget, no doubt delivered with a Peter Sellers' Moriarty leer or like Arte Johnson's German soldier in Laugh-In:

"All very interesting".

Very interesting? With cigarette in hand? Coulda been a contender?

Put simply, talk of "strange budget speech", and time machines, and absurd claims, and finding things laughable, and the mother of all spendathons, and strange universes just doesn't cut it. Not from the sidelines.

It's time for Peter Costello to address the real issues facing the world ... like world government. Or else it's time for a nap ...

The point? Peter Costello was the world's greatest treasurer? Was ... but let's not belabor the point even further ...