David Marr, and ringbarking the greens with ponderous ent jokes ...

(Above: eek, an ent. Notice the creepy resemblance to Bob Brown. And now they're letting gays adopt children in NSW!)

They say as scribblers get older, they get more cynical, and despairing, and conservative.

As the grave creeps closer, what to do with the irrepressible young, or the naively optimistic or the deluded?

Perhaps it's the same for cartoonists. There's certainly nothing more tragic than listening to the shrill, bitter, exasperated sounds of Patrick Cook, once a fine satirical cartoonist, who now infests a corner of ABC Radio, along with Michael Duffy and Paul-Comrie Thomson.

It's not so much that Cook is now so far to the right that Genghis Khan looks nervously over his shoulder whenever he's mentioned. It's just that the querulous, sharply toned Cook just isn't funny. Malicious, savage, resentful, carping, but as funny as a camel with piles, and Duffy's dry forced exaggerated laugh after each segment is as painful as Stephen Colbert trying to do his gags to an empty studio, without a laugh track, for the international edition of his show.

Curiously, Duffy seems to have become the branding for Counterpoint, with his photo at the top of the page, and his name as presenter, proving the pond's thesis that all commentariat commentators deep down yearn for a sheltered life wearing cardigans on the ABC, talking about a wild eyed swing to the conservative way by appealing to Radio National listeners.

Which is to say me, three radical feminists, a couple of tame socialists able to listen to the radio while working, and a half dozen old folk stuck in a rest home without the strength to push the button that will change the station.

And if you believe we'll change to the conservative cause, clearly you believe pigs might fly after a rich feed via slobbering snouts stuck deep into the public trough.

If you've never listened, you can of course do the pod thing, here, but have you thought about becoming a victim of the invasion of the body snatchers instead?

But this is by way of a digression, a sideline, as we troop off a little late, to read the bitchery and snidery resident in David Marr's Lord of the Greens readies his troops for the return of the queen.

Every preening snipish word dripped spittle and bile, from the get go to a detour down a side road at the end to give everyone a good goosing, including Stephen Smith, for simply doing his job.

Is this what happens to the ageing raging one time liberal fighting against the fading of the light?

In the old days, Marr's effort would have been dubbed a 'colour' piece. No need for any intelligent examination of anything, just blather about colour and movement. And confronted with the sight of a flock of new Greens parading for the cameras, colour was clearly needed, as even the most intrepid scribbler would quail at the prospect.

Even so, it's a wonder Marr bothered. Here's his opening salvo:

WHEN the Great Ent of Australian politics - more tree than man - assembled his Green team for the benefit of the press, the message of the occasion was unity, steadiness of purpose and discipline. Only Bob Brown spoke. But for Christine Milne's murmured prompts to her leader, all were resolutely silent.

The great ent? Just to make sure that the punters get the gag - that Brown's a Tolkien type tree hugger from mystical middle earth times - Marr follows with the 'more tree than man' routine, but when you strip it down, it's a form of fair average bogan abuse, of the 'yah yah, tree hugging tree hugger' kind.

It's about as subtle as calling people loons, fair average fun for a therapeutic blog of no significance in the world, but low slapstick from a writer who's worshipped at the feet of Patrick White. (Now there was a man who knew how to bitch ...)

And it's downhill from there.

En masse - perhaps an exaggeration - they present as a delegation of wide-eyed optimists off on a fact-finding mission to a dangerous land: the Congo, perhaps, or the China of Chairman Mao. They're ready but they don't know what they'll find.

Well yes, no 'perhaps', it is an exaggeration, and a cheap snide exaggeration at that, from a man determined to do down a bunch of people because they presented - to him - as wide-eyed optimists. Can the contrarian Conrad, confronted by the heart of darkness, get any sillier? Of course he can:

Bob Brown towers over them. These senators, soon-to-be-senators and a member-elect are mostly young, neat and, it has to be said, short. The star recruit Lee Rhiannon smiled gamely while hidden behind Brown's shoulder as he pledged to bring "sparkle and innovation" to government.

Uh huh. It has to be said, short? Well it has to be said that the last time I saw Marr, promenading through the Opera House, he seemed hunched over, his shoulders hanging forlornly and somehow scrunched up, and with a creased, worried frown on his face. Feel any more enlightened about Marr and his determination to bring sparkle and innovation to journalism?

Not really, and now I begin to fear for him as again he picks up his fountain pen to scribble:

You fear for them once they open their mouths. Under Gough Whitlam, Labor heavies began to speak just like their leader. John Howard's admirers soon had his Sydney drawl. It's beyond their control: the ventriloquism of power.

Is there a ventriloquism of half baked, half assed commentariat scribbling, I wonder? The ventriloquism of a writer channeling the easy minded green bashing so common in the press, that Marr could cause Tim Blair to chortle and to link to him with relish?

You get your cheap easy opinion and your wrapping for your chips for free?

Meanwhile, thought the gag about trees had already run its course, and there'd be plenty of room for cheap new shots? Think again, let's do the ent routine all over again:

Brown's monotone works for Brown. He speaks for the trees and if trees could speak they would speak like him. But the wider diffusion of his unique flatline would be a harsh outcome for Australian politics. It's hard listening: the long Tasmanian "ums" and the great gaps between words.

Lordy, now it's the way Tasmanians speak. Like tree hugging trees. Never mind South Australians talking about schuuul. Never mind the great gaps in meaning between Marr's words. You see, it's just a snide piece of bitchery, a jolly jape amongst chums intent on insisting on stereotypes with all the ferocity of a Jane Albrechtsen.

Finally with the scene set, the solemn tree huggings slowly beginning to drawl like incestuous tree-like Tasmanians, we come to policy:

The business of the press conference was to address media panic over the newfound leverage of the Greens. Headlines have been shrill.

What? No jolly japes about ents? Headlines have been shrill? Yes, I suppose they have been. I seem to remember reading one that said 'Lord of the Greens readies his troops for the return of the queen.' Second thoughts, is silly the same as shrill?

Brown listed almost with pride the objectives that remain still beyond his party's reach. "I did maths at Trunkey Creek public," he said when asked about reintroducing death duties. "I can see that's not going to succeed".

Right now he'd like the media to stop accusing his party of "pushing" its policies. Several journalists were corrected in half an hour's questioning. The form of words the senator prefers is "advocating the Greens agenda". He may be joking.

Yes, and reading deep down, you suspect Marr thinks he might be joking, in the way that Cook seems to think he's joking. So here's a joke:

Standing at various points around the Parliament are ranks of wheelie bins marked "General Waste", "Co-mingle" and "Paper waste only".

They were ready and waiting should the government change. But what does it say about Canberra's morals that they are chained and locked together while waiting to be carted empty away?

What does it say about the morals of a writer who would scribble this sort of nonsense? Does he have a problem with 'co-minglers' having a fuck with their close kissing cousins 'paper waste only'?

What does it say about the desperation of a 'colour' writer forced to make something out of wheelie bins being chained and locked together as a metaphor for the current political landscape?

Well Marr's piece should have been chained up and locked away, and marked empty of meaning. It is in the scheme of things, a waste of paper, a waste of ether, a general waste, and a waste of time for anyone who co-mingles with it, however briefly.

By golly, is this the sign of the times, that someone like Marr should end up sounding exactly like Miranda the Devine?

Pardon me, I feel so faint, I must go outside and hug the gum towering over the house ... or I might ringbark it, and send it to Gunns for woodchipping, so that Marr has a vehicle for his musing ...

Whatever, and enough already.

(Below: an all purpose Patrick Cook from The Bulletin in 2007. For full effect, substitute David Marr on one side with Miranda the Devine or Janet Albrechtsen making jokes about the greens on the other, or perhaps David Marr on one side and Patrick Cook on the other).