Chattering about a distracting entertainment ...

(Above: your entertainment for the day? Gillard turning down Jones' apology? Gee thanks ABC, thank the lord you didn't file it under politics or social news. No links, screencap)


The trouble for the Liberal party is not just Alan Jones' initial mistake, but the ongoing surliness, resentment and bilious tone attached to his apology, as noted in his conjuring of tales of Mitt Romney-esque martyrdom, A 'cautionary tale' for the dinner set.

In the meantime, the federal government hanging Peter Slipper out to dry has slipped off the radar, while if it gets a mention, that goose Senator Conroy's suggestion that business people wear underpants when dealing with the government in a tender, is way down the list of comedy stylings.

Why on earth compound the Jones' folly by bleating about Chatham House rules and the dishonesty in obtaining the story?

Stupid is as stupid does, and stupid usually gets caught. Jones has compromised himself - perhaps fatally so - by revealing his deeply embittered, hostile approach to life, and by failing to understand the folly.

What on earth to make of this, as presented in Jones eats pie - but without much humility?

He likened the anger about Labor's policies to the anxiety suffered by troops at Gallipoli. ''In the trenches of Gallipoli people made black-humoured comments about facing death,'' he said. ''A lot of people today feel they have got their backs to the door.'' 

WTF? Living in Sydney in 2012 is like fighting in the trenches in 1915? Black-humoured comment about facing death? It was Gillard's father that died, not the goose Jones.

Now that's a comment that could only be made by someone who didn't line up for a go in Vietnam ...

Meanwhile, Woolworths has been caught up in the collateral damage:

... Woolworths was forced to distance itself from the uproar after it emerged its government affairs manager, Simon Berger, a former Howard government staffer, attended the dinner and donated a "chaff-bag jacket" - a reference to an earlier controversial comment by Jones about Ms Gillard - for auction. Woolworths spokeswoman Claire Kimball said Mr Berger had attended the function in a private capacity. (here, behind the Oz paywall, so google if you must).

Sexism and stupidity rampant.

Naturally, mates being mates, that singular boofhead John Singleton has lined up behind his mate, claiming Jones had made a personal and unconditional apology. Trouble is, it wasn't. It was hedged with excuses and explantations and caveats and the misguided appropriation of a black-humoured source.

It seemed at the end of the apology that all he was doing was copping one for the team while facing down Abdul, Jacko, Johnno, Johnny Turk, and sending 'em off on a Jacko Turkey-trot (if you assume that the Labor government is roughly equivalent to the Turks at Gallipoli).

Or some such bizarre assembly of delusional Gallipoli slang (you can find more here).

It's the same over the top, look the machine gunners in the eye, apocalyptic, end of the world routines that have done well for Tony Abbott in the past few years, but the patent absurdity of the rhetoric, the hate, the bile, soon wears thin, and the disconnection from reality becomes apparent.

Peter van Onselen puts his finger on the bleeding obvious in Apology by Alan Jones signifies nothing (behind the Oz paywall, and why should you care?):

Even if we cast Alan Jones's 45-minute rambling non-apology apology yesterday as contrition, that doesn't get past the fact that previously when Jones has apologised for his vile commentary about Julia Gillard it hasn't changed his approach. 
 In other words, an apology from Jones means very little: his arrogance prevents him truly conceding the error of his ways. Readers will remember that Jones previously used his radio program to declare that the PM should be put in a chaff bag and thrown out to sea. 
He apologised for the statement, yet at the same function where Jones made his latest offensive remarks he signed - and was the highest bidder for - a jacket sewn from chaff bags that was auctioned for the Sydney University Liberal club.

It's the oldest routine in the book.

Your mother is a syphilitic whore, and your father died of shame the moment he saw you pop out of the womb to spread lies.

Oh sorry did that offend you? By the way, I'm told penicillin is a good cure for syphilis, you might like to tell your mother ...

As for the Sydney University Liberal club having nothing to do with the Liberal party?

Eek, it's Dame Slap with the man who donated the signed budgie smugglers to the show ...

The end result of Jones' epic stupidity, an attempt at humour which has all the incisive sparkle of a cow pat? Cue van Onselen:

The last thing that Tony Abbott needed right now was one of his closest political allies mounting the sort of attack on the PM that Jones has done. 
 The latest offensive remarks have probably built sympathy for the PM just when she and her party have achieved at least a partial polling reprieve. There is little doubt voters are upset with the government's performance, not to mention that of the PM. 
But Jones has provided a high-profile distraction from the government's performance, which reflects badly on himself and the Liberal Party: the hosts of his disgraceful speech.

No dissembling by van Onselen about the Sydney Liberal club - boasting of alumni like John Howard, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull and Bronwyn Bishop (and Alex Hawke for the love of the absent lord) - or claims that somehow has nothing to do with the Liberal party, or it's just undergraduate students having a lark, since the lark was had by Jones, watched by a bunch of consenting adults from the business world, including a couple of Liberal party politicians of some stature ...

And the pond has another bone to pick with Jones. Usually Monday would be spent with Generally grumpy Paul "the world is ending by Friday at noon says Chicken Little" Sheehan, who is in splendid form in Visa insult a betrayal of liberalism.

It's always a hoot when a ratbag like Sheehan imagines he's a protector of liberalism, especially as in this case his idea of liberalism is to maintain the rage about Geert Wilders.

But Jones has taken up too much time, which is why we can't dwell on Slipper being hung out to dry, or wear underpants on his head or Sheehan getting agitated about Wilders.

As usual, Sheehan uses Wilders as a chance to stick in the boot to multiculturalism, boat people, the Labor government, Al Grassby, the way the rabbit-like Muslims are outbreeding the west, and all the usual views which will in due course turn up on Storm Front's website with hearty approval.

Of all the nonsense, it's this little outburst that caught the pond's eye:

Wilders is an elected member of parliament, has never been convicted of a crime and is an outspoken defender of pluralism, democracy, feminism and freedom of speech. He believes these bedrock liberal values are being eroded by a steady, incremental challenge from Muslims in Holland. 

Not once does Sheehan mention that Wilders' party copped a pasting in the last election, and that the Dutch themselves have in bulk turned away from his wild-eyed assortment of rabid raving right wing prejudices, not just in the matter of Islamics breeding like rabbits but in relation to Wilders' attitude to the Euro and his desire to bring back the guilder. It was Wilders who brought on the elections and Wilders' party which copped the bucketing.

To present Wilders as a hapless persecuted liberal is a bit like proposing that Hitler should be given a pass because he was a dog-loving vegetarian.

Sheehan would have mounted a better argument if he'd acknowledged that Wilders was a wild-eyed right wing ratbag, but despite this, should still be allowed into Australia to spread a little right wing poison and bile, with Cory Bernardi's full approval ...

Then, as Wilders did in the UK, when he overturned a ban on him entering that country, we can understand that when Wilders calls Muhammad a barbarian, a mass murderer and a pedophile, he's not exactly being a liberal.

For more information on Wilders, visit his wiki here, a more reliable source than the one-eyed Sheehan, who manages to shoot his argument in the foot in the way of an Alan Jones. What a surprise ...

Who'd have guessed they shared a taste for dissembling and peddling hate and bile?

Let Wilders come, but please no fancy dressing as a liberal.

Just bring along a chaff bag and he and Alan Jones and Cory Berardi and Paul Sheehan can have a fine old time ...

... while the pond goes about the business of transferring the remainder of its business from Woolies to the local IGA-franchised grocer ...

(Below: a cartoon for paranoid persecuted liberally grumpy Paul Sheehan).