What happens when you're late to the feast?
Why you just start picking at the carcass, confiscate the left overs and keep on going, and so it is with Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen, who in today's Australian, keeps the flame alive about that devious, cunning vixen Julia Gillard, in Nixon rule the danger to tricky Julia (behind the paywall for your mental health).
Yep, when all else fails, drag the tricky Dick metaphor out of the cupboard, dust off the moths, and charge on:
As 2012 wraps up, the Prime Minister has proven a far better politician than she ever was a lawyer. Poll position up. Opposition Leader neutered by flimsy charges of sexism. Press gallery journalists tamed into wide-eyed obeisance, interested more in the PM's bluster than in details of a reprehensible union scandal. Clever.
Clever.
The rest of the crusading rag seems to have decided to give Gillard bashing a rest for a day. Besides, there's a new squirrel in town to take up the top of the digital page:
Meanwhile Eric Lobbecke contributes a splendid cartoon splash to help Dame Slap along:
The pond wonders whether Eric ever looks in the mirror, but it's probably fair to say that a day job is better than a night job, especially if it involves shelf-stacking in a supermarket while dreaming of the mega comic that will take Hollywood by storm.
Meanwhile, thanks to Dame Slap, we learn that Julia Gillard has it all over John Howard when it comes to pure political cunning, but that the knavery, the tricky Dick tricky business will catch up with her.
Yes if that's what transpires, or perhaps expires, it won't be John Howard clever, it'll be Nixon dumb, because actually Gillard is completely dumb, in the way we expect of red-headed foxes when negotiating with smooth blonde turtles like Albrechtsen.
And just for a minute we had you fooled and there you were thinking she was more clever and cunning than John Howard, right up there with the supreme Master tricky Dick himself.
And it's about this point in the read when the gullible reader realises that Albrechtsen hasn't a jot or a tittle of anything new to say, just a re-hash, all over again, of the usual stuff the rag has been running for what feels like an eternity. The Nixon tag is just a ruse, a bit like tomato sauce, to make the re-heated hash seem more palatable.
And what makes it even worse is that it's full of caveats, as in the very last sentence:
If the Nixon rule applies, it may be that any cover-up by Gillard as a politician will cause her more damage than her imprudent behaviour as a lawyer.
If ... it may be ... yadda legalistic yadda ...
If the Nixon rule applies, it is certain that before scribbling another jot or tittle about Gillard, Janet Albrechtsen should pray for a Deep Throat because braying like a part of the Oz's donkey herd will cause her more damage as a columnist than whatever she might have managed as a lawyer.
Oops, sorry ... if it may be, if that is what transpires ... or expires, as the case may be ...
The rest is a standard bit of standard '4 be 2' bout of Gillard bashing. What will the commentariat do when she's gone?
It seems the shameless harridan has accused poor innocent hapless Tony Abbott of sexism on the thinnest of grounds, and you can join 2,157,122 viewers - and rising - of YouTube here in remembering just how cruel red-heads can be to dumb beasts going about their ritual negativity on a daily Noh basis.
Enough of Dame Slap, who is sounding a little tired and off her oats. What we need is another dose of Lord Monckton and a United Nations' conspiracy to introduce world government via climate change! It's the least we could expect in the run up to December 21 ...
But when we turn to Andrew the Bolter Bolt for a little fresh meat at the feast, what do we get?
Recycled Janet Albrechtsen under the header of The complete certainty of a dangerously poor PM.
Slabs of Dame Slap left-overs cut and pasted by a lazy wretch too tired to scribble his own abuse ... even with Tricky David Cameron standing by as a perfectly apt metaphor!
And if that isn't enough, just below that bit of cut and paste, there's another chunk-sized slab of Paul Kelly taking a swipe at Gillard and the NDIS, recycled by the Bolter, fresh from the News Corp bain-marie under the header Gillard's biggest promise of all.
On any given day, you can usually find some scribe at News Corp talking about group think and the herd mentality, seemingly unaware that the poor dears are just a herd of startled, fearful gazelles in the biggest echo chamber of all.
We were off to the Bolter to get some fresh climate science denialism - there's been much alarming talk in the press of late that he might have got the science wrong - but instead we learn that if you spend days at the football with the partner of the PM, as a journalist, you must declare an immediate conflict of interest (A question of partiality).
Immediately forgetting the primary purpose of the visit, the pond rushed off to David Penberthy's last contribution to The Punch, it's here - In 2013, NSW Labor's stench will eclipse Baillieu's sloth - and also hunted high and low through his Punch bio, expecting to find a little note saying don't trust a word Penbo says, because he's engaged to Kate Ellis (Power couple: Ellis and Penberthy to wed).
For a moment the pond thought that it was being as childish, petulant and generally grinchy as the Bolter, but that's when the penny dropped.
There's simply no problem with having a fuck and pillow talk, it's going to the footy with a mate that's the criminal offence! That's a real question of partiality ... with the entire concept of mateship under threat by a journalist being matey with a hairdresser. At the bloody footy! Oh the shame of it ...
Meanwhile, it took more scrolling to find the Bolter delivering the good news on climate science, as explained in Fearmongers' shame: reader fears warming will kill their children:
It is grotesque, how Labor’s scare-mongering has so terrified so many people. Consider the following facts: the world hasn’t warmed in 16 years, the carbon tax would make at very most about 0.0038 degrees difference in a century, and modest warming could even leave us better off. Consider also man’s astonishing ability to adapt, and the rapid progress in wealth, health and technology.
Indeed. It's extraordinary that right up to this point in time the pond had failed to realise that Ban Ki-Moon is a member of the Australian Labor party (Extreme weather is new normal, U.N.'s Ban tells climate talks), but of course it fits, because the Labor party is only using climate science to join up Australia to a world socialist government.
One reader boldly noted that Tony Abbott and the Liberal party also ostensibly accepted the current climate science conclusions, and had plans to deal with it, but naturally the silly wretch was immediately shouted down by the kool aid drinkers.
As for the Bolter's science, it reminded the pond of a neat little piece called Straw man science: keeping climate simple, well worth a cleansing read after you've spent a little time with that Bolter straw man.
And the Bolter's mention that global warming stopped 16 years ago, it reminded the pond of David Rose of the Daily Mail, and this little note on the way Rose had been a champion cherry picker, Temperature "analysis" by David Rose doesn't smell so sweet.
But up against grotesque talk of the grotesque Labor party and their fear-mongering ways, what sort of reasoned logic would cut the mustard against a man who is in reality doing the very thing he accuses Labor politicians of doing - politicising the science, and playing both sides of the rhetorical game.
So climate science isn't happening - the world has stopped warming, but if it is happening, warming will leave us better off. And besides humanity is astonishing clever and adaptable, unless you happen to be Julia Gillard, Richard Nixon or work for News Ltd.
And if you believe any of that, we have a bulk deal on kool aid you'll find hard to refuse.
You can't argue with a dolt or a Bolt, but it reminds the pond yet again, how wonderful it is to see group think, and the herd mentality in action on a daily basis in the wondrous world of News Corp.
Is it any wonder the pond cracked a red to celebrate the death of yet another avenue for misinformation (Murdoch iPad experiment to be switched off)
And so to a koan:
LNG halves carbon emissions
So stop wasting billions
On windmills now!
On climate change,
China is the whole game.
Thanks Rupert ... and we'll keep shipping that coal, while your minions continue your work and your vision ...
DP, there's a terrific article on Elisabeth Murdoch at New Yorker. Auletta says "She is convinced that video online will be huge." If that means demand for download speed will keep increasing, I wonder where that leaves Abbott & Turnbull with their nah-nah-nah-BN.
ReplyDeleteMeet the Climate Denial Machine is a useful reference.
Thanks for those links Trevor. Ken Auletta's a pond favourite. To be fair, I think the big Rupe had an inkling a long time ago that video online would be huge once connectivity improved. What peeved him and Fox and the whole damn thing is that they didn't own the NBN, and work out a way to gouge people, as opposed to watching their cable and newspaper businesses cop hit after hit. For Abbott and Turnbull the story now is how to roll it out cheaply and efficiently, code for how soon can they privatise it and sell the taxpayer down the tube as soon as they get power. Oh it'll be a grand boondoggle ...
ReplyDelete