Where is your 18C now?

Oh dear is that tedious barnacle going to speak yet again?

Haven't we scraped him off the hull yet?

Meanwhile, the Bolter backlash has begun and what great fun it is.

The man who thought he had the ear of power turns out to be just another angry, bitter blogger - oh yes the pond knows the kind - and all he can do is fulminate and rage.

It didn't take long for the fulminations to turn into Abbott's odd reason for dumping Racial Discrimination Act reforms, and it doesn't take much to decode the real meaning: Abbott's odd reason for persecuting a hapless, innocent Bolter:

My tip: the dysfunction or possible incompatibility of some cultures within our own will become one of the most urgent topics of public policy over the next decade. But it will be the easiest for activists to shut down. 
I’ve seen how easily the RDA – which makes it unlawful merely to “offend” or “insult” someone on the grounds of their “race” — can be used to shut down important debates. 
I had two of my own articles banned after I questioned why certain fair-skinned Aborigines identified solely as Aborigines when, I unlawfully thought, they could also identify with their non-Aboriginal ancestry. 
True, Abbott was actually stating an excuse for his backdown rather than a reason. 
His proposals were badly sold by Attorney General George Brandis, and far more groups than Muslims fought them. Jewish leaders, foolishly, were the most vocal. 
There was just no way Abbott would get his reforms through the Senate, and so they were dumped. And that is the most alarming of all. Does free speech really have so few defenders?

Decoded: ant this is the most alarming of all. Does the right of the Bolter to indulge in a little tweaking and insulting of uppity, difficult blacks really have so few defenders?

And the next day the bitterness still flowed. 

But by this stage the brooding had shifted to hapless Barry O'Farrell, and the Bolter quoting the Bolter:

There's an irony there of course. Because the Bolter has on occasion found the odd Grange unexpectedly left around the house, and he's always got Grange on his mind:

Room service? Two more bottles of Grange. And fast, before the boiling seas reach the penthouse. (here)

Well if you're going to sob over an opera, better the tears should fall into a Grange ...

And then came more Bolter quoting the Bolter, so it only seems fair that the pond should quote the Bolter quoting the Bolter:

Actually it's easy enough to find the fruits of the Bolter's anger elsewhere, like a cheery piece by Bruce Pascoe, Andrew Bolt's Disappointment, written for the Griffith Review:

I am one of Andrew Bolt's disappointments. I didn't know I had offended him until a friend sent me a copy of the column in which I was pilloried by Bolt for deciding to be black. People expect me to be outraged but my inclination is to wish I could have a yarn with Bolt over a beer. Except he doesn't drink beer, I'm told, just good red wine. Sad, the impasse we have just because histamines play havoc with my arthritis. 
I can see Bolt's point, and the frustration of many Australians when pale people identify with an Aboriginal heritage. The people he attacked for this crime, however, had an unfortunate thing in common: their credentials were impeccable. Any good reporter could pick up the phone and talk to their mothers about their Aboriginality until the chooks go to roost. 
If I had been part of the group who took Bolt to court for impugning their heritage he would have had a field day. My mother's dead, and even if she had been alive she knew precious little about her heritage. He would have found that my cousin had discovered the woman we thought was our Aboriginal ancestor was, in fact, born in England. 
Having got that far I hope he would have delved deeper and found that both my mother's and father's families had an Aboriginal connection. I was amazed to find that the families knew each other in Tasmania years before my father met my mother at a Melbourne Baptist church.

And so on, including this nice little offer to bond:

I reckon Bolt and I would have a terrific yarn. He came from Holland as a child and learned to be an outsider too. I reckon I'd be fascinated by his childhood, how he coped as an alien. But I'd be impatient to tell him how I was perplexed by my father's mild acceptance of my discoveries. I'm sure Bolt would want the same question answered that I do: why had no one but a rogue uncle spoken of this before?

But the Bolter's not interested in bonding, not when the demonising game is afoot.

Of course the Bolter has now tried to move on. There's always leftist students, and Islamic infidels, and climate change, with the Bolter all too often distracted from his job as the world's greatest climate scientist.

But nagging away underneath will be the knowledge of betrayal.

Of treachery and pragmatism, which sees even the Murdoch press telling of how "Bolt's Law" will stay in place.

Uh huh. All this flip flopping, remind anyone of anybody?

But actually it's worse.

The Prime Minister revealed on Wednesday that he had personally phoned Bolt to tell him of his decision to drop his repeal plans. 
''I had a conversation with Andrew Bolt yesterday and I explained it was off the table, I knew he would be disappointed,'' he told ABC Radio. 
Mr Bolt revealed the backdown on his blog before Mr Abbott made the announcement at a media conference on Tuesday. (here)

So Abbott's briefing pet journalists while telling Brandis to go jump?

So where's the Bolter's messiah now? Where is his 18C now? Where is George Brandis now? Where is Abbott now? Where are all the thongs now?

Room service? Two more bottles of Grange. And fast, before the boiling seas, the fatted golden calf, the indolent saucy maiden and the wretched. treacherous infidels reach the penthouse.