Time to abandon the lycra for a white suit?

(Above: we've noted the uncanny resemblance before, and it still keeps being uncanny).

You have to hand it to Akker Dakker, Daily Terrorist extraordinaire.

Here he is puffing and panting, in Left attack on Abbott will run out of puff, replete with handsome picture of dear leader in lycra:

After noisily hyperventilating about Coalition MPs alleged abuse of Parliamentary entitlements, "our" ABC and the Fairfax press appear to have run out of puff.

Here's Simon Benson, apparently part of the same ABC and Fairfax gang, scribbling for the very same Daily Terror, same day and date, in Caught in a fraught rort (paywall limited):

It's fair to say the PM has not handled this issue well. Despite being thrust into it by his Attorney General George Brandis and Minister at large Barnaby Joyce, he is now at the centre of it. And it's unlikely to go away as the expense records of every MP are trawled over.

Indeed. According to H. G. Wells, in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but in the world of sane politics, the one-eyed Akker Dakker is a pathetic cheerleader.

The point, as Benson makes clear, is that both sides aren't averse to testing the wind, pushing the windows, whatever metaphor you like, when it comes to the odd junket and rort, and yet have the cheek to carry on when taxpayers do the same.

Benson thinks clearer rules aren't as important as politicians recognising ethical requirements (and their hypocrisy in pushing boundaries), but hey, Abbott is the standard setter, and he's not setting any standards at all.

Clearer rules would be a start, and longer term, give politicians a pay rise, or a fixed allowance to be used any which way they like.

Whatever, it's a typical ploy of the hagiographers to present this as a media and party political problem. It's actually bedevilled politics since long before the days when John Howard announced he was running a cleanskin government, and then was startled by all the dirty skins around him ...

Peter Hartcher, one of the condemned Fairfaxians, seems to think all will be well, provided there's a bit of SWOT work done:

If he's serious about restoring trust in government and, if he's smart, Abbott will take this as an opportunity, not a threat. He will call a press conference on Monday. He will say that, now he's back in the country, he's had a chance to consider the matter.  (here)

Uh huh. Well the pond has a note in the calendar for Monday and a bottle of red hanging on the result, as to whether Abbott will bite the bullet or ride out the storm.

Opportunities to turn baggage into bonuses don't come often, but the travel expenses affair is one if Abbott is leader enough to grasp it.

Meanwhile, the hagiographers must be getting desperate, because for some mysterious reason the lizards at the reptile Oz have provided a long piece by Chris Kenny, outside the paywall (at least at this moment), with Know your enemy - Tony Abbott continues to confound the Left.

Free Kenny!

It's either up there with Free Mandela, or Free Samples of Right Wing Blather Here.

There's nothing much to read in it, apart from the usual hagiography, and some risible reinterpretations of history, including this:

Throughout this period, Howard's many critics in the parliament, on the airwaves and in the oped pages made life difficult for him but never managed to knock him far off course. 
In the end, it was an inconvenient drought, overreach on industrial relations and Howard's intransigence over succession that gifted Rudd the chance to replace him.

It turns out, you see, that the problem is the usual one - the readers of The Australian - which is to say, the educated, affluent end of middle-class Australia who still piss away their money on subscriptions to the rag.

What's astonishing is the shameless way the reptiles at the lizard Oz indulge in group think.

Here's the righteous editorial, also outside the paywall, where they celebrate John Howard, and never mind that Howard lost - Left misreads Tony Abbott as they did John Howard.

Labor and its attendant scribes again face the challenge of 1996: accept the verdict of the popular ballot and listen to the electorate's judgment on policy, or fight on into oblivion with rejected ideas. -

It's hard to work out in all the blather whether there's a Little Sir Echo at work, but an echo there definitely is. Back to Kenny:

Mock it or not, if Howard and Abbott placed themselves squarely in the middle of the national political mainstream there is an obvious consequence for Labor and the Left. 
If you style yourself as the antithesis of a successful mainstream politician you must, by definition, push yourself to the margins.

And so the buffing and the polishing continues apace, endless diverting work for the drones, and never mind a simple question as to what Abbott might bravely and boldly do about a simple policy matter, one of regulations and rules and following them, in a grey area which fails the infamous "pub" test (infamous in that this phrasing maintains the public bar policies of the 1950s).

The irony of this sort of ranting - some might call it simple-minded gloating - is that both the major parties were on the nose in the last Senate election, which explains why we've likely ended up with a billionaire partially controlling the output of a conservative government's legislation.

What could go wrong?

After all, the AMEP is in fine shape, as you can remind yourself by listening to Jon Faine interviewing Scott McDonald here.

There will inevitably come a time when the reptiles will have to turn from having a free kick at the Labor party, and address what Abbott is actually doing ... or not doing ...

But it will be awhile coming, if Kenny's own contribution to the entitlements debate is anything to go by ...

Yep, if you can stand it this morning you get Double Free Kenny.

Astonishingly Kenny's Time a little light was shed on the murky issue of MPs' expenses also seems to be outside the paywall for the moment, but maybe it will be locked down soon.

Never mind, there's nothing to see, except Kenny explaining how really the only way to keep politicians and their expenses in line is a little public shaming.

Yep, it seems the media is the only way to stop politicians and their cohorts from gaming the system, which makes Akker Dakker moaning about a media conspiracy sound a little odd.

Not that Kenny sees much wrong with the current system.

It turns out that attending the footy and doing marathons and charity cycling events on the taxpayer dollar are fine - how else to mingle with the people? - and any comparison of this kind of rort with Peter Slipper is wrong, because Slipper is accused of allegedly deliberately falsifying records to disguise the purpose and the cost of travel.

This is completely different to MPs cheerfully claiming first and refunding later if anyone catches on that attending a wedding might be a bit suspect (only Kenny can explain the difference between mingling at a wedding and mingling at a footy grandfinal or a charity cycling event).

But the point is that where a culture of entitlement and indulgence exists - such a hard life politicians lead, and never mind the idea that if you don't like it, don't do it - then there's a slippery slope, and it's very hard to distinguish between one kind of fraud and another.

Is there much difference between one politician thinking they can get away with it, and another politician determined to get away with it?

Kenny, for example, opens with a tale of theft - an adviser empties a mini-bar and makes off with the contents, with the bill to be charged to the taxpayer, and Kenny is the (innocent) bag carrier.

Now that's not the same as making off with the complimentary shampoo, it's theft, pure and simple, and if you were to make off with some stock in a supermarket or store, you'd likely cop the sack.

But Kenny tells it as a rueful anecdote - what will those crazy pollies and their staff get up to next.

It's very easy to talk about Slipper being a world apart, but all the anecdotes Kenny provides suggests he's very much part of that insiders' world of easy entitlement.

Astonishingly, Peter van Onselen, burbling on about entitlements in Do as we say, not as we do, doesn't cut it any more, is also outside the paywall for the moment. Maybe the "lite" access system crashed so the pond could rifle through the store of ideas, maybe the lizards are cultivating a sense of entitlement before slapping down the barriers ...

You know, you have to pay for the mini-bar and the rag.

Never mind. After gifting Abbott with a tin ear, and going through all the usual reasons why a fix is needed, van Onselen concludes with a quote you'll never find in Kenny:

In May last year, in a magazine interview, Abbott said: "One of the reasons why people are so disillusioned with the current government ... is that they just think they are a bunch of, you know, sort of sleazy patronage peddlers." 
Governments change, but some things stay the same.

Yep, a month in, and some of the Murdoch reptiles are calling Abbott a sleazy patronage peddler.

Sssh, not a word to Akker Dakker, he thinks it's Fairfax and the ABC, and he'd be terribly upset.

But that's the thing the Akker Dakker hagiographers don't seem to understand.

The Labor party is so yesterday. Putting the boot into them is yesterday's game, unless you happen to be an obsessive compulsive reptile.

Here's a relatively minor matter where it would be easy to be seen taking the matter seriously and doing something about it, a bipartisan problem that needs bipartisan attention and a bipartisan fix.

Even Kenny manages to kick around a few decorative flourishes that might be implemented. Nothing to address the deeper culture of entitlement, but a few gestural ideas borrowed here and there from the likes of Nick Xenophon.

Is Abbott up to it? He had an image problem going into the election - as the seedy Senate result shows - and he now has an image problem after the election, despite the best endeavours of the hagiographers.

Will he do something? Or will he agree with the hagiographers that it's all a leftist media plot by the ABC and Fairfax, and never mind the stories in the Murdoch press? Will he just think he can cruise through, and the hagiographers will wipe away the dirt?

The pond feels safe drinking that bottle of red long before we reach Monday ...

(Below: for some obscure reason, the pond was reminded of Alec Guiness in The Man in the White Suit, a 1951 Ealing comedy about a mill worker who accidentally invents a fibre which repels dirt, never wears out, and makes a brilliant un-stainable white suit. Tony Abbott might have need of such an invention, especially if there's a lot of red wine on hand at assorted wedding feasts).