Janet Albrechtsen, and an argumentum ad verecundium, or did someone mention Mark Latham as a victim of factionalism?

(Above: an attempt to elevate the discourse, as we try to work out the difference between Time Inc.'s March of Time, Orson Welle's parody in Citizen Kane, and the difference between William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch, given the Murdoch empire's farcical elevation of Glenn Beck to demi god status. Do no evil? Not if you're running the evil empire).

There's nothing like a whiff of full blown paranoia in the air. Catch a sniff of it, and it's as fresh and as stimulating as the smell of napalm in the morning.

Alternatively, and as we love our political metaphors, if you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.

Head off to Caroline Overington, and you'll get the full ripe smell of evil empire paranoia, in Let's get things straight, Tingle, as the drama queen hastily assures us that bloody Laura Tingle got the entire thing wrong, and the bloody dagger belongs to the Fin, not The Australian.

To which all we can say is - as my partner assures me sergeant majors with a love of napalm are wont to say - (warning genteel possums, avert your eyes, language fit to fry a sergeant major follows) harden the fuck up, hacks of Australia.

If you dish it out, on a daily basis, filling your pages with bile and spleen and hatred and hostility, get ready to taste it as the dish is served back to you. Lukewarm and hostile and spiced with the fragrant taste of bile and spleen. Or alternatively if you can't stand the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen. Whatever you do, don't scribble defensive dribble:

The "aggression" of News has not "stepped up" since then. When a Newspoll found most Australians wanted the three independents to throw their vote to Gillard, thereby installing her as PM, The Oz ran it on the front page.

So one swallow does make a summer, and one news story constitutes an astonishing statistical study of bias in The Australian. Here's the other leg, you can give that one a good pull too.

Flock of wimps. Stiffen up. When the going gets tough the going gets tough. Or a dozen other mindless stupidities fresh from the conservative short back and sides mind set. If you're blindly prejudiced, better to be proud of it in the Chris Mitchell way, and refuse to be bullied by that outrageous bully Bob Brown. Sticks and stones might break our bones Bob, so we're gunna take a bloody chainsaw to ya ...

But that was yesterday, and today, as they say, with a sublime awareness of the the relentless march of time, is today, and so we move on to Janet Albrechtsen spreading her standard FUD in Labor's future depends on Gillard reforming factions.

Yep, it's yet another interminable lecture on Labor party factions from a conservative commentariat columnist. She could of course have given us a lecture on how the Liberal party should seize the moment, and reinvigorate itself by tossing out the deadwood. Come on down Bronnie Bishop. Go away Bronnie Bishop.

She might have contemplated brooding about whether it's the wisest course to announce that Malcolm Turnbull has been assigned the attack dog task of destroying the NBN. Might it not have been better to come up with a better policy, which is to say a cheaper scheme which still delivers the goods?

Instead of another nattering bout of negativity which seems designed to cast the opposition as the 'bah humbug' party ...

No, no, it's time to trawl through the likes of Mark Latham, Morris Iemma, and Karl Bitar, that faceless man:

Moving along past that fully faced faceless man, Albrechtsen glides past Frank Sartor and Paul Keating - all names designed to jangle the nerves of hapless terrified conservative possums - to arrive at the news that Julia Gillard condemned factionalism.

It was all the work of the factions that Rudd took the dive, which must be terrible news for the weeping mining billionaires, who wasted squillions when they simply could have offered the ALP factions a humble zip for an ice pick in the neck. Not to mention the valiant efforts of The Australian and its year long effort to convince us the former chairman was on the nose.

But of course the intent of Albrechtsen's piece is to establish that the factions are in total control, and determine everything, and so her prescription of good government will fail.

Her idea of good government? To put reform of the factions within the ALP at the top of the agenda.

What about Stephen Conroy, for example? Given a choice, the pond would plump for a positive Malcolm Turnbull handling a broadband rollout. Conroy's obsession with his filter, and his tendency towards a monopolistic government structure could do with intense scrutiny. What's Albrechtsen yammering on about?

... Does this mean Gillard will, for example, ask deputy Senate leader and factional heavyweight Stephen Conroy to cease and desist from factional activities?

Yep, never mind the actual NBN, get anxious about the way Conroy wears his Blundstones.

And so on and so forth in a column which is remarkably free of everything except fear, doubt, uncertainty and a celebration of factionalism. You can almost see Albrechtsen slobbering with pleasure at the prospect of instability:

If Rudd had too much power after his 2007 win, Gillard's problem is she doesn't have enough. Leading a minority government that mixes Labor with Greens with independents from conservative seats means her power to pass legislation is wafer thin. An illness, death or grumpy member within her rainbow alliance is enough to her curb her tenuous control of parliament.

Yes, sob, salivate, snark, and snuffle, it's going to be a total disaster, and we must ruin the country in order to save it. We must destroy the NBN and erect no decent alternative policy in its place. We must brood about the factions and celebrate Bronwyn Bishop and the pack of aging Howard hounds still lolling in front of the grand fireplace in the Liberal club. Did someone mention Philip Ruddock, still wearing his Amnesty badge?

Reforming her own party is equally problematic. Forget courage, convictions and the community. How do you say "upset no one" in Latin? This is Gillard's new crowning crest.

Well here's something you might say in Latin: non facias malum ut inde fiat bonum.

Don't do evil in order that good may be made from it. Not that we'd expect The Australian to adopt that as a motto (more handy Latin phrases here).

We suspect that the Murdoch pack would prefer noli turbare circulos meos. Don't disturb my circles! (said by Archimedes before a Roman solider knocked him off, and meaning don't upset my calculations).

Here at the pond, we prefer Margart Atwood's dog Latin nolite te bastardes carboroundorum. Which is to say don't let the bastards grind you down.

But back to Albrechtsen:

Yet, at some point, Labor's future depends on a leader courageous enough to confront the party's factions. Certainly factions can play a useful role in modern day politics. They can have robust policy debates, unify an unruly caucus behind policies, disendorse deadwood members and replace dud leaders. Perhaps if factions started articulating and defending their role more, they might remember their core role.

Instead, Labor's most powerful factions have a sole obsession with power. Just ask Iemma or Latham or Keating. Or Gillard. Clearly, something needs to change if, to coin a phrase, Labor is to "get back on track".

Which is the bit I really love the most. In any other year, at any other moment, Albrechtsen would be spending her energy explaining how Iemma was a hopeless, soft, incompetent politician who helped run NSW into the ground before deservedly getting the boot, how Latham was a barking mad politician rightly given the flick by the electorate - how narrowly we escaped a Lathamite folly - and how Paul Keating was a verbal razor blade who became blunted over time, and was rightly traded in and given a thumping by the noble John Howard.

Now these ghosts of Labor past are marshalled together to explain that they are living proof that what's wrong with Labor is that they were given the flick. Whereas if there were to be any decent argument for factions, it would have been that they called time on Iemma, Latham and Keating.

Not that it actually happened this way, but sometimes if you have a debate with a delusional person, you need to share the delusions to have the discussion.

Well here's a few more handy Latin phrases. Non causa pro causa (mistaking a false cause of an event for the real cause) and post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). To arrive at an ignorantio elenchi, or irrelevant conclusion. And let's not get into argumentum ad ignorantium.

If you want a handy survey of logical fallacies, you can either keep on reading Albrechtsen, or you can head off to Logical Fallacies Handlist, and have some fun.

(And as for the header argumentum ad verecundium, or argument from that which is improper, we mean of course an appeal to a famous person or source who may not be reliable. Did someone mention Mark Latham?)

(Below: time for the editor of The Australian to take the Citizen Kane pledge? Dream on, and keep reading the likes of Albrechtsen and Overington).