Christopher Pearson, Chongzhen, Taksin, Ivan the Terrible, Goebbels and Club Gherkin.

(Above: Chad Morgan, part of our new don't ask, don't tell, don't explain, don't get drawn into silly comparisons routine here at the pond).

Here at the pond we almost overlooked Christopher Pearson's contribution to the ether this weekend, in Panic in the ranks over whiff of mortality.

No need to stamp your feet and throw a hissy fit, little missy, as they used to say in Tamworth, the only home for genuine Australians and country music lovers (but not of the alt music kind, yes, we mean you, you Patty Griffin lovers), for quality will out.

Yep, it's hard to overlook the rattling of the cage, the pompous portentous prattling of the permanent prat.

In recent weeks Pearson has been advertising his membership of his very own Club Sensible. Here at the pond of course we have our very own club, namely Club Gherkin. Membership is restricted to those who can either demonstrate they eat gherkins, or who are in fact a gherkin. We have no knowledge of Pearson's dietary habits, but rest assured his membership of the club is guaranteed, with lifetime membership fees waived.

Still, we have to hand it to Pearson for a keen sense of history, and an awareness of the fragility of politics. Here's the historical reference he cited regarding Tony Abbott's brutal execution of Malcolm Turnbull:

When Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor, realised that his enemies were at the gates and that, as the Chinese say, "the mandate of heaven had been withdrawn", he ordered all the imperial household apart from his sons to commit suicide. He then proceeded in full regalia to a tree in the gardens on Jingshan Hill and hanged himself.

Oops, sorry, got that wrong. Will someone please shoot the copy editor. That seems to have some relevance to the downfall of former Chairman Rudd. What it might be we can't quite discern.

Never mind, here's what Pearson wrote about Tony Abbott's brutal back-stabbing of Malcolm Turnbull:

King Thaksin of Siam, an ancestor of the ousted Thai prime minister of the same name, was a tyrant who gradually went mad and came to believe he was an incarnation of Buddha. His ablest general intervened to depose the king and, according to the version of events in the Annamese court records, he was bundled into a velvet sack and clubbed to death with a fragrant sandalwood staff

We can be confident that Malcolm Turnbull is well aware of the Chinese precedent. Thaksin's death, with its judicious blend of lethal force and the deference due to a sovereign, may appeal to the more historically minded of Turnbull's colleagues in the Liberal party's collection of fundie right wing loons aggregated around Nick Minchin and Eric Abetzt.

Oh please, will someone shoot the bloody gremlin in the works. We're trying to be serious here, and take a considered look at the assassination of former Chairman Rudd by Stalinist death squads, and we were entranced by the comparison of Rudd to a religious madman, a comparison usually made to the Pope, the Pellist heretics and Catholics in general if they happen to believe in the reality of transubstantiation.

Not that we're into meaningless exaggeration or pathetic historical fallacies dressed up as some kind of insight.

Sad to say, of course, you won't get any of that in a Pearson piece as he takes the business of cheerleading for Tony Abbott with such seriousness that we thought about attaching the lyrics for Hey Mickey, dressed up as Oh Tony, you're so fine you blow my mind. Hey Tony. But is stooping to Pearson's level wise, or should we feign a serious nobility and worthy intent?

Well if nothing else there's fun to be had quoting Pearson quoting a paranoid Warwick McKibbin:

I don't know if Ken was fingering me, but there weren't too many other people out there arguing against an ETS. I have enormous respect for Ken Henry, but he can't believe that you should have consensus because it's better to have bad policy that everyone agrees with than eventually get good policy that will work.

Que? as spoken by Manuel. There weren't too many people out there arguing against an ETS, and that's why it was passed, and we now suffer under its burdensome impost, and so we ended up with a bad policy rather than a good policy that will work?

Well I suppose an alternative universe in which McKibbin and Pearson are the sole rational anti-ETS warriors might pass as intelligent discourse in some Victorian parlour once the subject of watering the aspidistra on the what not has been exhausted, but wait there's more.

You see, for months the punditocracy has been rabbiting on about the autocratic style of decision making emanating from former Chairman Rudd's office, and his dictatorial reign, and his private potty mouth designed to make people fall into line, but now of course he's merely one of the gang of four, perhaps the least effective member of the kitchen cabinet and hardly responsible for anything, since it was Gillard that bewitched him into making all the bad calls:

The former PM was fall guy but his offsiders signed off on the same bad decisions.

Yep, and when you follow this logic through, Julie Bishop is responsible for everything wrong in the Liberal party. Hang on, hang on, okay, bad call, I know she is, and so is Sophie Mirabella, because they blindly support their leader right or wrong, and because they're also members of the Gherkin club.

You see how this works:

When asked, Rudd told them : "My judgment was we had to be in the business of making a difference and under those circumstances there are no half-measures. You either don't act or you do. The worst thing you can do in public policy terms is to half-act; and you will be run over in the middle of the road."

Gillard signed off on that decision. If she has ever entertained any private reservations about the size of the stimulus, she has yet to air them.

Well at least it's good Pearson imagines Gillard has some private thoughts, even if might be only ever entertaining private reservations. Whenever I look at Julie Bishop, I wonder if she has any thoughts at all, since she's yet to air them. Soap bubbles yes, but thought bubbles?

As for Gillard, here's the next question. And please explain, oh atheist one, when you stopped beating your partner, and why you embarked on this tactic as a way to domestic harmony in the first place?

Do people read this kind of prattling and think it makes any sense at all, in the context of politics and the way the game is played?

Well at least if they have ambitions to being a coach rather than a rather portly portentous cheerleader hovering on the sidelines, trying to prance about whenever a brand new revelation from the fearless leader is announced ... like Chairman Rudd was done over by Stalinist death squads ...

Ah well, I suppose by leading with Chongzhen, Pearson managed to avoid, even if his unacknowledged source seems a little obvious - ain't wikis grand - a more predictable reference to Goebbels killing his six children with morphine and cyanide, and then shooting himself while his wife took poison, and so end up with a breach of Godwin's Law - even if it would have elevated him still further up the ladder of the Junior Woodchuck grand pooh bah master of gherkin eaters.

And I suppose that the reference to King Thaksin of Siam (you can find a wiki here under the spelling of Taksin) avoids the obvious comparison between Chairman Rudd and Ivan the Terrible, or perhaps Stalin. After all, being a Marxist communist of the lickspittle kind, Rudd would be well aware of Eisenstein's film, and of the way Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-aw for wearing immodest clothing, which caused an argument with his son, which led to his son's accidental death.

Oh dear, I quite got carried away. Yes membership of the Gherkin Club gives you the right to wander down the by ways of history and draw supercilious distinctions entirely without meaning ...

Now where were we, apart from being proud members of and worthy poo bahs of Club Stupid, because stupid is as stupid scribbles?

Why I believe we were in Tamworth, fighting with the good folks there about why Patty Griffin is worth a listen - yep, she's a redhead too, in a conspiracy of redheads.

So here's a couple of songs, one with no visuals and the other with a naff video clip. But what the hell, they're free, at least so long as YouTube keeps the links alive, so if you've got a problem with that, off to West Leagues with you and listen to Chad Morgan (by golly Chad's got a wiki too, who'da thunk it ... but then I guess he was trying to make an honest living, unlike some paid entertainers for the Murdoch stables ...):