Janet Albrechtsen, and no no no, it's not a religious thing, it's just a religious thing ...

(Above: found here at Bank backlash).

The commentariat being what they are - competitive, and able to deliver free ideas to a free market, and who can compete with free? - it must surely irritate a few that Janet Albrechtsen, for some obscure, possibly even opaque reason, is the resident conservative chattering class commentator granted a seat on the ABC's talk shows to chatter away.

Once a board member, always a guru, it seems, and how Miranda the Devine and Gerard Henderson must hate and envy her, as she lined up on Q and A's finale - yes it's November and the ABC goes into its three month long recess - to drop poils of wisdom:

This is a commonsense movement. It's not like one nation. I see that Peter Beattie, you know, has referred to the Tea Party as like One Nation. One Nation was based on illiberal ideas. The Team Party is based very much on the ideas of the founding fathers, which are Liberal ideas about smaller government and freedom.

Janet Albrechtsen. Standing up for the tea party and standing up for commonsense.

A commonsense movement. So commonsense that the notion that Obama dropped US$200 million a day on his trip to India went down like honey in the land of the gullible bees ...

Naturally George Brandis was on hand to reinforce the notion that the Tea Party was an exceptionally good thing, because people were critical ... Never mind the quality of the criticism, they were critical:

I don't think that anything that was said by people in the Tea Party or the more mainstream elements of the Republican Party was beyond the bounds of legitimate but very heated criticism of the president, the current administration and their policies, and to that extent I think - you know, the problem with you people on the left is whenever there is a popular move against you, you try to de-legitimise it, just as you - just as you have done with the American elections.

Yep, this is how you legitimise the likes of Michele Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell, and sundry ratbags delivering "heated criticism", and before you know it you have US$200 million a day as a legitimate talking point. And a great source of satire for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert ...

As always, Albrechtsen was ready with phrases tripping off the tip of the tongue:

You know, the Greens are - I like to call them, you know, a pack of wolves in koala costumes because they - you know, they hide behind this environmental cause.

It was at that point that I remembered why I disliked Q & A intensely. It was full of the chattering elite, sometimes dressed in trendy inner west black, sniping away with glib prepared phrases substituting for intelligent debate, points of view already carved in stone, and no one prepared to give quarter ... or an inch, to mix the metaphors.

Still if you left at that point, you'd have missed the piquant sight of Albrechtsen agreeing with a devout Muslim on the matter of gay marriage, and then hastily adding that it wasn't a matter of religion for her, and then getting caught in a logic trap offered up by Tony Jones as she brayed about how civil unions were okay, but not marriage:

TONY JONES: ... just to confirm, you're okay with idea of civil unions.
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: Correct.
TONY JONES: But you don't like the symbol of marriage?
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: Correct.
TONY JONES: You don't like the religious symbol...
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: That's right.
TONY JONES: ...being applied to it?
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: Mm-hm.
TONY JONES: Okay. But you don't believe in religion either.
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: No. No. No.
TONY JONES: It's not a religious issue.
JANET ALBRECHTSEN: I'm just saying I don't come to it, you know, from a religious point of view.

No, no, no, in the usual Albrechtsen way, she comes at it from a totally incoherent, inchoate point of view. What a non-religious religious hoot.

And then there was some guff about putting out the red carpet for asylum seekers, before thankfully everyone ran out of time, and Albrechtsen no longer needed to dance trippingly on the head of a pin. As she'd managed so adroitly at the start of the show when discussing jolly Joe Hockey, and his dalliance with wolfish thinking in relation to the banks ...

TONY JONES: Janet, we were talking earlier about Joe Hockey capturing a public mood but, of course, when he began, he started talking about pulling levers. Now, were you comfortable with that as a free marketeer?

JANET ALBRECHTSEN: Yeah. No. No. It was pretty undisciplined language, I think, but Joe has come back from that and I think there are lots of sensible suggestions that he has come forward with. You know, the Liberal Party is the party of free enterprise but, you know, why on earth, if the banks are not going to explain to us in very clear language what their case is, tell us what the different sources of funding are, why they're increased costs have come about, if they can't explain that to us, why on earth would they expect others to carry the can for them?

Which is as good a way to throw to Albrechtsen's column today in the lizard Oz as can be managed, jumping from a debate which produced its usual share of hot air and bugger all by way of light.

Albrechtsen has always been a staunch defender of the banks - sssh, let's not mention her partner John O'Sullivan in 2006-07 collected a cool $2.4 million for his work as chief legal officer of the Commonwealth Bank (here) - but of course she's also a staunch defender of the Liberals. And jolly Joe ...

So how to manage those wolfishly green jolly Joe attacks, that have the Greens baying in unison with him?

Well in Let's hear the positive story from the banks, the quality of the toe tapping, jigging, dancing on the spot and deflecting, is positively inspirational. It turns out that while jolly Joe was "clumsy in his language", the banks have a wonderful story to tell, but have been woeful at telling it ...

The wisdom of Solomon at work. Split the child in half, show care and love for each half, and all's well in the world. Jolly Joe's nine point plan is jolly good, but the banks' case is also spiffing. It's just that they don't explain themselves well ...

The Commonwealth Bank's rate hike was the perfect example:

When the CBA increased its variable mortgage rate by .45 per cent, almost double the .25 per cent RBA hike, the bank's response was left to an unknown spokesman who assured us the decision was not taken lightly.

"The impetus of the decision was based on the increased cost of funds the bank has continued to experience," said Mr Spokesman.

Phew, the politics inside the Commonwealth Bank must be ugly.

The "unknown spokesman" was in fact in many cases Bryan Fitzgerald, as was made plain for all to see, carrying as he does the noble title Head of Communications as he fronted the media pack of wolves.

Ah those PR hacks, shills and ne'er do wells, it's always wise to shoot the messenger for delivering the message ...

There's the unknown soldier and then there's the unknown spokesman, and then there's the cheap shot, and never should we mention any undeclared connections ...

By the end of her piece, Albrechtsen had lathered herself up into a self-contradictory frenzy, which allows a pot shot at the mining tax, while offering relief for the Liberal party:

Yes, the Liberal Party is the party of free enterprise, but if the banks can't or won't defend themselves, why should others carry the can for them? Compare the miners earlier this year.

Yes, yes, yes, what this country needs is a multi-billion media assault by the banks, emulating the miners, on ... jolly Joe Hockey and the Liberal party ...

Come on banking lads, show some spunk. Sure you showed some spunk calling jolly Joe an antipodean version of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, but that wasn't the right sort.

... if the banks want to make their case, they could start by using their own set of numbers to communicate some simple messages to borrowers. Explain the basic economics at work, the numbers behind the different sources of funding banks borrow to on-lend to customers. What are the differing costs? Explain the net interest margins. Explain the return on equity and assets. Explain that making banks safer with new capital and liquidity rules comes at a cost. Fight numbers with numbers.

Yes come on lads, an arcane defence of banking methods, couched in the manner of internal accounting procedures, will work tremendously well in the tabloids, especially if used to confront the terrible bashing of banks done with a piece of four be two. I'm sure we'd all love to be informed about the intricacies of the banking world - yawn, sorry I nodded off there for a second - so we can withstand the desire to bash the banks about the charges they inflict on us ... especially the charges for changing banks in a fit of pique ...

And so on and so forth, until the final par, in which the game of Twister is emulated to perfection, as the banks are simultaneously wonderful and yet totally to blame, and bank bashing and Tea party sentiments and jolly Joe Hockey dressed up as a wolf in koala clothing are set aside:

Sure, it's depressing to listen to the simplistic attacks on banks. It's frustrating to see how quickly Australians seem to forget that Australia's AAA-rated banks led the world in best practice during the financial crisis. No bank failures here. No bank bailouts either. Every Australian who has superannuation is a beneficiary of our well-run, profitable banks. There is only one thing worse than a profitable bank. It's an unprofitable bank.

Yes, yes, yes it's a veritable Elysian field of splendid banks, and never mind that the Federal government for some strange reason provided a little underpinning during the GFC. Now what's the dark cloud?

That said, if Australia's big four banks continue to play the policy and politics of this debate as poorly as in the past, they will have themselves to blame for Labor's idea of banking reform.

Say what? I thought it was jolly Joe's idea of banking reform - and bank bashing - that had set the hare running. Suddenly it's all Labor's idea of banking reform?

So there you have it. Jolly Joe innocent, the banks to blame, that unknown spokesperson Bryan Fitzgerald in particular, and the Labor party being their usual fiendish self ...

Gay marriage not a religious issue but a religious issue? Banks not a jolly Joe bank bashing exercise but a deviant Labor idea for banking reform?

By golly I feel a game coming on, a game for adults wanting a little fun. Come on down Milton Bradley ...