Gerard Henderson, Nazis, comedians, latte sippers and the like, and never forget the Stalinists, Maoists and the like ...

(Above: you can find this culture wars item referenced at Media Watch, here, or in its original form here, and in a bizarre collection of memos at Google docs, here, which you might be inclined to read as an old April fool's joke).

Gerard Henderson is fond of tracking down lickspittle fellow travellers with communist dictators, of the mass murdering kind, especially chairman Mao and comrade Stalin.

He takes a relentless fervent stand, full of the zeal of a ferret with a fine nose for the faintest trace of past historical heresy.

That's how you get a column like A blind spot going back to Mao, wherein politicians as diverse as Malcolm Fraser, Gough Whitlam and Jim Cairns are remembered for their star-struck Mao worship, and how the Greens sat through an address by president Hu while disrupting George Bush's effusions.

In that piece, Henderson then went on to make the point that there is no causal link between Nazi methods and those of the contemporary Greens. It does an unintentional disservice to the memory of the victims of German fascism to suggest otherwise ...

But of course it does a service to the memory of the victims of Stalinist repression to suggest that the Greens are being taken over by Stalinists and in particular by that watermelon Lee Rhiannon. Sins of the parents, sins of the youth, and all that ...

That's how you get a column like Radical roots seep through at the heart of Greens.

For radical roots, read Stalinist.

The safe way to do this? Put yourself at arm's length and quote Paul Howes calling Rhiannon's family lifelong members of the pro-Stalinist Socialist Party, and then mutter darkly about radical roots and lifetime membership of the CPA, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and middle-class radicalism ...

Well we'll leave those in the know to discuss who were the splitters, the deviants, the orthodox, the Trotskyite, and the ratbag - let those without sin or love of B. A. Santamaria cast the first stone on the sinners - but it makes a splendid introduction to Henderson's latest effort, Political conversation sours with Nazi comparisons, wherein he deplores references to the Nazi party when conducting a political debate in Australia.

Yes, Henderson has discovered once again Godwin's Law, which he does at regular intervals, as shown by Why Nazism is a joke to callow Harry in 2005 or Nazi remarks go way over the top in 2009, wherein Henderson deals with the vital issue of Kyle Sandiland's concentration camp remark regarding Magda Szubanski.

Now we're impatiently awaiting the sequel by Henderson, which we might dub Political conversation sours with Stalinist, Soviet, Maoist, artist, comedian, latte sipping, ABC viewing, cardigan wearing, wine swilling, pate gobbling, dangerous inner city professional elite comparisons.

Yes, that'd make it hard for Henderson to put together a column.

Never mind, most of Henderson's column is a shallow regurgitation of Nazi history, as if somehow he's the only man in the country with an interest in history. Enough already. If we wanted potted history of the Nazi kind, we only have to tune into SBS, especially on a Friday night, where the shameless network earns its stripes as the SS and XXX channel (yes, and shuffles off the final episode of The Accursed Kings for a bicycle race. As Bart Simpson might say, Die SBS Programmers Die, which of course in Nazi Germany means The SBS Programmers The).

Along with the tiresome Henderson history lesson, also available via Google and wiki, comes a defence of Andrew Bolt and Greg Sheridan, which goes to show that the pots always gang up when it comes to calling out the kettle. But at least the Greens can now celebrate because they've been given a day pass. According to Henderson, In modern Australia there are no Hitlers and no Stalins.

Just the children of Stalinists.

Oops, sorry, there we go again.

The one item of interest in this meandering maundering defence of Bolt's right to talk about Jew hatred and hatred of Greens, and Sheridan's dissing of Muslims, was this curiousity:

On Insiders on Sunday the Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt said democracies sometimes make errors and this was the case with those Germans who voted for the Nazi party in 1933. His point was that Australians who vote Greens today also err. The NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker then upped the ante by maintaining Bolt had said that the Greens were like the initiators of Kristallnacht, the Nazis' 1938 pogrom against the Jews.

That's passing strange. I do recollect Jamie Parker embroiled in the wars with sundry folk, in Loewenstein Responds To News Ltd, and Are The Greens Ready For Hard Ball?, and ideologue Paul Howes doing his standard Greens bashing routine in Radicalism may force Greens to change tunes. (in which Howes mis-spells Loewenstein's name throughout the piece), which concluded thus:

Jamie Parker has the right to be outraged about being portrayed as someone who would use hate-speak. He's not, and he didn't.

That's passing strange, if Parker talked of Bolt and Kristallnacht, as Henderson asserts without link or reference.

The most recent reference to Kristallnacht in the NSW culture wars came from the recalcitrant David Penberthy in relation to Green Fiona Byrne when he accused her of advocating a polite modern rendering of Kristallnacht in the Inner West ... (here)

Is Henderson copping Parker for a Penberthy crime?

Who knows, and who in the end cares.

Roll on the day when the political conversation is stripped of snide references to Mao, or Stalin, or inner city elites and snobs with a taste for coffee. It would shut up almost every commentariat columnist going around at the moment, and the pond could cease to exist and slither away to an early retirement and a peaceful old age.

But these days trolling for comments and hits is as much the business of the mainstream media as blogging, and faux exaggerated shock and horror at ideological affiliations is as essential to the game as cricket requiring a bat and ball ...

The yellow press is here to stay, and while Henderson might pretend in an antimacassar desiccated prissy way to be above it all, as he explains ...

These days the only real political violence is found in the abuse of language. This is best treated by a reading of history.

... this suggests that Henderson never reads his own columns or dwells on his own history of misrepresentation and distortion and refusal to countenance alternative views of the world, whether on matters of history, or the culture wars in which he participates right here, right now, and always with an eye to the wrong end of the telescope.

Truth to tell, Henderson loves to abuse his opponents, imagining he's wielding a stiletto rather than an axe, and sinking in the slipper rather than a boot to the mid-riff, and never above naming a Stalinist when the naming has to be done. Of such is the finest form of distilled hypocrisy made and bottled and supplied to a fine media merchant near you ...

And now on a lighter note, the pond is always late to the scene of an accident, or an April Fool's joke, but this fool's joke is so delicious that we'd like to refer any stray reader who might have missed it to The biggest April Fools in Australian history.

Second thoughts, it might be better to do it in order. Why not head off to the Guardian's spoof editorial, The magic of the monarchy: The Royal moment has come, which contains a number of splendid 'start of April' bon mots revolving around the upcoming royal wedding and the need for the Guardian to recant its republicanism in favour of union jack waving. My favourite:

William encapsulates our spirit of internationalism, thanks to his Greek and German heritage on his father’s side, and his gap year in Chile.

Now head back to Barry Everingham's report on David Flint's reaction to the Guardian's spoof, including, in Flint's usual pompous portentous manner, a welcome back to the prodigal son, as he celebrates the Guardian's return to the monarchist fold.

If you head off to the Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy site, or that even grander absurdity, the site for The Crowned Republic, Flint's egg on face, totally suckered in piece has disappeared, but never fear, Barry has it to hand in two screen caps in his story, thereby preserving Flint's folly in the digital ether.

Oh and you can also find Flint's wondrous piece, Wedding triggers knockout blow to republicans at Scribd. (You can scrub a folly out of the Google cache, but you can't cache a folly away from a decent search engine).

Thanks Bazza, as Flinty fans might say, the laugh of the week.

So many loons, so little time.

(Below: and in a similar spirit, you can imagine the shock and the horror when we saw this photo proving that Jon Stewart consorted with Colonel Gaddafi. Oh Jon, were the dates and the coffee worth it?)