(Above: found here in a site dedicated to the dismissal).Happily once a decent time has passed, the AFR paywall lifts and Mark Latham's lunches are revealed to the world in all their glowing glory.
So it is that the average punter can access the thoughts of Robert Manne, as channeled by Latham, sorted over two vegetable soups, spring rolls, steamed scallops with vegetables, roast duck, fried rice and two Vietnamese teas for the grand spend of $63 at the BBQ House Seafood Restaurant 240 Victoria Street, Richmond ... (A home away from home for the pond).
Since today is prattling Polonius day, let's get things off with a bang, as Manne and Latham brood about said Prufrock:
His most persistent critic is the Sydney Institute's Gerard Henderson, who blogs every Friday on a series of imagined Manne atrocities. Henderson is notoriously precious in his exchanges with other people, reaching into his encyclopaedic filing system to even the score with rivals who might have crossed him any time in the past 50 years. And so it is with Manne.
As he tells the story, "Gerard and I were at Melbourne University together in the late 1960s. He was known very much as Santa's man on campus, an acolyte of B. A. Santamaria. He submitted an article to the university magazine for which I was one of three co-editors. I actually wanted to run it but the other two editors didn't like it. Ultimately, the piece was rejected and Gerard, quite incorrectly, blamed me. For many years I didn't even realise he hated me, but that's Henderson for you."
Some years ago Anne Henderson, Gerard's wife and the deputy director of the Sydney Institute, wrote a book called Getting Even. For Gerard, it could easily be biographical, a neat precis of his outlook on life. For anyone who doubts Gerard's capacity for revenge, Manne's recollections are instructive. Like most rivalries, this one is laced with jealousy. Henderson detests Manne's reputation as Australia's leading public intellectual, while Gerard himself languishes in the nit-picking trivia of his Friday blog. (and if you want the rest of Latham's self- and Manne-congratulatory effort, you can find it here under the header Robert Manne is all we have left).
Naturally pompous Polonius found the bait irresistible, and found the time to respond.
Truly if he were a trout, he'd provide no sport at all, as he furiously fired off Manne and Latham's false claims and nonsense.
The silly goose - or should that be the desiccated coconut - spends a good deal of time in his letter suggesting there was no enmity between him and Manne in the eighties and early nineties, and no envy or spite in relation to Manne, which makes you wonder if Hendo actually reads his own relentless tirades about Manne.
Naturally he refutes all imputations about Anne Henderson's book as ridiculous, and he also blathers on about how the article rejected by the Manne troika was picked up by James McAuley for Quadant, "a much more influential magazine than MUM" (yes, even in denying a point, hapless Polonius can't help revealing himself as a pompous prat).
Now here's the strange thing. The cruellest cut in the Latham/Manne conversation is the reference to Henderson being a lap poodle of B. A. Santamaria - the bit that runs He was known very much as Santa's man on campus, an acolyte of B. A. Santamaria.
No defence? No resistance? An acolyte of a barking mad Catholic fundamentalist? Or is it guilty as charged?
No wonder Henderson has trouble getting two coherent thoughts together in a single sentence, yet he has the cheek to talk of Latham and Manne as inconsistent thinkers.
Does he really think it constitutes a defence of Anne Henderson's book to propose that the title was suggested by the publisher HarperCollins? What on earth has that got to do with anything? It's a joke, about someone of precious hue, who's always intent on getting even. To the point of acting like a salmon and sending a missive to the editor of the AFR, trying yet again to get even ...
So it goes, and so today, we have yet another peculiar insight into the thinking of Gerard Henderson, as unveiled by Left closes ranks to consign Kerr to wrong side of history.
What's so peculiar? Well for starters there's a kind of puffery and self-esteem at work, right up there with Mark Latham.
Polonius is indignant that upstart Jenny Hocking has dared to step on to the hallowed turf of Henderson, and the matter of Sir John Kerr and the dismissal. He revealed all two decades ago, it was all Gerard, Gerard, Gerard!
My revelation that Mason was the third man in the dismissal was published in the Herald on January 8, 1994 and received wide coverage. Before submitting the piece, I wrote to Mason advising what I proposed to do. His office acknowledged receipt of my letter and expressed thanks for giving advanced warning. Later I corresponded with Whitlam about this.
Me, me, me, I, I, I ...
Me, me, me, I, I, I ...
Now the naughty Hocking has muddied the waters, stirred things up, and brought Mason out of the closet, stealing Gerard's thunder! (Mason speaks out on dismissal, forced video at end of link).
It's just so wrong, so unfair. So let's have a barrel of nit-picking snidery discharged in the direction of Mason:
Mason recalls that he told Kerr he should warn Whitlam of his intentions. Kerr never said this to me and Hocking has found no such recollection in Kerr's papers. Since Kerr died in 1991, his attitude on this matter will never be heard.
Uh huh. That damn Mason. Could he be involved in a perverted leftist conspiracy to consign Kerr to the wrong side of history, and without the drunkard around to defend himself?
Uh huh. That damn Mason. Could he be involved in a perverted leftist conspiracy to consign Kerr to the wrong side of history, and without the drunkard around to defend himself?
Well it would be a bit rich of Henderson to accuse Mason of lying or disremembering, so he has to turn his double-barreled buckshot of spleen and envy on someone else. Come on down Jenny Hocking:
Hocking is the Left's bespoke biographer who has published adoring accounts of such left-wing identities as author Frank Hardy, politician and judge Lionel Murphy and Whitlam. In a number of soft ABC interviews yesterday, Hocking described Kerr as a "weak man" with "an animated concern for his own position".
Oh no, Ms Hocking, you spoke to the ABC! You know they're notoriously soft and leftist.
The mere fact that you speak the obvious about Kerr, a weak man, and a bit of a vain peacock with an animated concern for his own position - just look at his love of fancy toff clobber - is simply neither here nor there.
No doubt it's sad that Kerr, always a bit of a tosspot, eked out his remaining years in London, where he could be seen most days, usually the worse for wear, at one or other gentleman's club, but them's the breaks (here at his wiki).
But do go on Mr. Henderson, worship your idol:
The latter reference was a comment on Kerr's expressed concern that, if he gave warning that he intended to dismiss Whitlam for attempting to govern without supply (i.e. money), Whitlam would have advised the Queen to sack him first.
This was not a question of self-preservation. In his conversations with me, Kerr made it very clear that he was desperate not to involve Buckingham Palace in an Australian political dispute. There is little doubt that Whitlam would have moved against Kerr if he had been consulted by Kerr along the lines Mason suggests. In the climate of 1975, this would have caused a constitutional crisis and possible political disorder.
This was not a question of self-preservation. In his conversations with me, Kerr made it very clear that he was desperate not to involve Buckingham Palace in an Australian political dispute. There is little doubt that Whitlam would have moved against Kerr if he had been consulted by Kerr along the lines Mason suggests. In the climate of 1975, this would have caused a constitutional crisis and possible political disorder.
Uh huh. So thanks to John Kerr there was no constitutional crisis and no political disorder. And in your alternative universe, Buck Rogers meets the Martians ...
And so Malcolm Fraser came slouching towards Bethlehem, and as an ultimate payback, now torments Henderson weekly with his leftist attitudes and pronouncements.
There's an irony in there somewhere.
But let's get back to embittered unhappy Henderson, still fighting the dismissal wars some 37 years after they started. Is that a giant massive chip on the shoulder or what?
Hocking's attacks on Kerr should not detract from one central matter. The dismissal resulted from the fact that the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, blocked supply and Whitlam attempted to govern without supply. Yet today Whitlam and Fraser are left-wing heroes while Kerr is criticised for doing his duty and resolving the impasse by dismissing Whitlam and ordering Fraser to conduct an immediate double dissolution election.
Yes, in Henderson's bizarro world, Fraser is part of the left-wing conspiracy, and poor old Kerr is posthumously persecuted for just doing his duty while inclined to a drink or three.
Back in the day of course it was understood to be not so much a resolution of an impasse as a rewarding of Fraser for his obstructionist conduct. And a critique of the Whitlam government, which deserved a critique but which had also recently been re-elected ...
How silly to situate a political discussion in the political realities of the time, and how silly not to realise the doofus in the middle was blind-sided by Fraser ...
Does it say something about Henderson that he approves dissembling and subterfuge, and Kerr not having the balls to front Whitlam and stare him down, as Mason said he proposed?
Might Kerr even have rung Malcolm Fraser an hour before doing the dirty deed of the dismissal, to tip him off, as Fraser has claimed? No straight bat or derring do from this man ...
It goes to the character of Kerr, and perhaps it might also go to the character of Henderson as he yammers on yet again about the ABC, the left and the history wars, which now strangely include Sir Anthony Mason on the wrong side ...
Phew, after that, the pond feels like a sit down slap-up meal.
And remember to raise a glass and drink to the ABC, Anthony Mason and Malcolm Fraser, those heroes of the leftist class struggle ...
(Below: and now let's go to the races with Sir John and get a little tipsy).
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