Miranda Devine, Tony Abbott, Thomas Carlyle, Orson Welles and heroes ...

(Above: the kind of leader we need in politics in the antipodes).

As night follows day, and the moon revolves around the sun and the earth is flat, sure enough here comes Miranda the Devine over the horizon to rescue her hero, gerbil a roger or two, and announce Compared to labouring Rudd, Abbott's a no-tricks phoney.

Miranda herself is alarmingly well connected to the proletariat. While some might think she's just an extravagantly paid conservative given the job of drumming up controversy in the name of clicks and comments (or selling parrot cage lining), she has her finger firmly on the heartbeat of the nation - or should that be the carotid artery of the intellect?

Squibbing it is a self-indulgent vanity that does not go down well in voterland, in the shearing sheds and on the factory floors, battlefields and rugby fields, where leaders inspire with myth as much as with character.

The shearing sheds? We're still riding on the sheep's back? Bring on the gerbils.

Bugger me dead, I haven't been so inspired by that kind of rhetoric since the good old days of Gunga Din.

The rugby fields of Eton? Or is that Harrow? Or are we talking about the rugby fields where clubs cheat for the ultimate prize and men stick fingers up bums?

Never mind, it seems we're all wandering in the wilderness looking for a new Moses:

Out there in voterland people are wandering in the wilderness looking for a new Moses. Abbott has to become that person, and put on a show. Leadership is seven parts competence and three parts performance. That is not phoniness.

Wandering in the wilderness! Put on a show Moses. Do a Penn and Teller. Show us your tricks.

So I guess any passing liar will do provided he's done a pre-requisite course in Stanislavski and is good at stagecraft. But with all this talk of footy and battlefields and factory floors, I guess you were wondering what might have happened to the y'artz. Well they too have an important role to play:

It has been said that leadership is the "greatest performing art of all - the only one that creates institutions of lasting value, institutions that can endure long after the stars who envisioned them have left the theatre".

Oh dear, a quick google confirms the Devine's source, and her choice of reading matter. Unless of course the Devine herself is not above a google for content. Come on down Warren Bennis: Acting the Part of a Leader. Please explain:

The first time Franklin Delano Roosevelt met Orson Welles, the President graciously said: "You know, Mr. Welles, you are the greatest actor in America." "Oh, no, Mr. President," Welles replied. "You are."

The point is vital, even if the story is apocryphal. Consider the actorly attributes they shared. Both were masters of the medium of radio—Roosevelt reassured the nation with his Fireside Chats; Welles scared listeners out of their wits with his War of the Worlds broadcast. Both men used wardrobe and props—Welles had his rakish hats, FDR his cape and cigarette holder—to create dashing images despite their physical imperfections.

Oh do, Orson Welles with his magic tricks, and his prime pork as a model for leadership.

If you feel like it, the concept in the book, based on the stage play, based loosely on a treatment or idea developed by Thomas Carlyle's hero worship, can be found in The Essential Bennis and is available for purchase from any disreputable bookseller.

But does that mean that we now have to think of Tony Abbott as some antipodean Orson Welles, rich in triple smoked ham? Lord knows, though I love him dearly, Welles couldn't organise his life or his movies in a remotely coherent way, so let's hope that Abbott isn't suddenly hearing the Chimes at Midnight.

But back to Miranda:

A leader, no matter how self-doubting he or she might feel from time to time, needs to project the illusion of being in control, of having all the answers, in order to inspire confidence.

Oh god, I can't help it, Godwin's Law has got me in its grip. Does she mean just like Hitler?

But thus far I've only been dealing with the Devine's rousing conclusions. The rest of the text is equally rich in splendid notions. Her meditations on leadership exemplify all that's best in rousing Victorian thinking.

You see when poor old hapless Tone got ambushed by Kerry O'Brien and suddenly got tagged, it led the Devine into deep philosophical distinctions, though along the way she does pause to reflect that she's baffled why Tone does this kind of thing to himself.

To extract him from his dilemma, the Devine has to look at the real world, a grim task but someone has to do it:

In the real world we all make commitments and undertakings, whether it's the shearing contractor promising the farmer he'll show up on Monday, whether it's bringing a plate of food to a school function, or bringing the flags to a club rugby match. People understand that unforeseen circumstances arise and sometimes we can't keep those commitments, but they are always made in good faith. If you seem to be making those commitments lightly, with no real intention of fulfilling them, people quietly stop doing business with you. What Abbott was telegraphing was the expectation that politicians "in the heat of discussion" will make commitments they have no intention of keeping. No one who is respected behaves like that in the real world.

From Four Corners to 60 Minutes, Q & A to The 7.30 Report, Abbott has been piling up these unscripted pearlers, all from the same aw shucks family of self-revelation.

Yep, the real world of the wide comb shearing contractor from New Zealand and the finger up the bum rugby field. Talk of aw shucks self-revelation.

But still it's sounding grim for Tone. How on earth can we get from here, down mired in the depths of despair, an easy target for a sucker punch, a stumble bum who sounds like a contender until he sticks out his glass jaw ... to the hero routine that emerges at the end? Easy peasy:

Opinion polls suggest the unthinkable might just possibly become reality, that the electorate is turning off Rudd so precipitously that he might be a one-termer.

You see, for all his faux pas, he's a winner baby, and that's no lie:

So Abbott has to believe he is more than a seat warmer for Malcolm Turnbull. The opposition is expected to provide a viable alternative and that is not just in real policies and competence and credibility but in the appearance of them.

You see, it's not just in real policies, but in the appearance of policies. In the appearance of leadership. After all, didn't plucky Britain defeat the Nazi swine by cleverly deploying fake tanks and trucks suggesting a feint on another front, and then driving into the heart of Normandy!

Appearances are everything. The Devine almost forgets this for a second as she moans about media coaching, and the voting for personalities, and thin slices of information producing a "dot painting" of leadership.

Then she remembers the art of self-contradiction, her speciality, and vigorously argues for artificiality and the appearance of things.

Well you can never expect coherence from the Devine. That's why we love her so. The incoherent rapscallion:

Abbott has shown repeatedly that no one can beat him for judgment, taste and logical grasp of an argument.

Except of course when he's doing all those awful things to himself, cutting himself like an Emo teenager in public on television in front of that socialist puppet!

He has cut through the white noise of Rudd's leadership voodoo and shredded the Prime Minister's record popularity. He has shown he has the courage and intellect to be not just a good opposition leader, but a great prime minister.

Even if of a lying, incoherent, give the stay at home moms $10,000 Catholic socialist kind.

Never mind, I have this splendid vision of the Devine and Tony Abbott waltzing off into the sunset together singing a lovely duet, perhaps with Orson Welles providing the bass drone:

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day

And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we're lovers, and that is that

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be heroes, for ever and ever
What d'you say?

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be heroes, just for one day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads)
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall)
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be heroes, just for one day

Dear lord, who'd have thunk that the pond would be linking to a David Bowie song? But somehow it feels just right, as we brood about heroes and Miranda the Devine and good old Tone. Take it away Ziggy: