Meanwhile, as Abbott, Bronnie and the reptiles drone on ...

So after months, years, of demonising, slavering, slobbering, salivating coverage of Islamics, the Murdochians finally managed to produce the knee-jerk response that the mindless Tony Abbott, stuck in a medieval Catholic world of transubstantiation, was always likely to produce ...

And for his pains, what sort of coverage did he cop from the Mad magazine of the deep north?

Why, a front cover demonising Bronnie ... where's the fairness in that?

Well at least they spared her a Photoshop, but with those clothes, who needed to exaggerate? Here's an idea for the deep north reptiles to try out some time ...

The trouble was, the burqa/burka/berserka/oh never mind fuss brought out the schizophrenia inherit in Murdoch la la land.

The reptiles at the lizard Oz tried to have it both ways - an EXCLUSIVE reminding the world that terror was just around the corner, and not just in the commentary and editorial writers terrorising their readers, and a washing of hands in the particular matter of the clothing:

Yes, it was left to the budgie smuggler man to urge a re-think on the hysteria he'd encouraged the day before, dog whistling to high heaven, and leaving hapless Bronnie hanging out to dry ...

There it was, in the digital edition, cheek by jowel:

It's usually the sort of logic you'd find in a movie sociopath:

There was shock and consternation ...

... as twitter erupted, and there was uproar in the land, featuring the most unlikely allies ...

Hurtful memes sprang up like agitated mushrooms exposed to the light:

(and more Wilcox here)

And so the bigot wilted in the sun, and the statesman intervened in a statesmanlike manner, and the quislings and fellow travellers were immensely gratified:

An excellent call? As excellent as Peta Credlin?

Yes Tim Wilson's link herded stray readers, like a gang of cats, to the Fairfaxians and Tony Abbott to kill off Parliament house burqa ban (forced video at end of link), and never mind that it was the futtock himself who set the whole furore in motion, and never mind that the speaker and the Parliament are supposed to have a measure of independence, because it's an institution, not the plaything of the PM, though that sort of logic jumped right out the window when Abbott appointed Bronnie to do his hatchet work and kick out a couple of hundred MPs of the wrong stripe, and what Wilson calls an excellent call others might call an embarrassment of a kind routinely produced by Bronnie with Abbott's full support ...

In an embarrassing back-down for the government, Fairfax Media has learnt Mr Abbott will ask Ms Bishop and Senator Pary to reconsider the proposal after an extraordinary backlash. 
Before the revised security rules were announced, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis both appeared to distance themselves from comments the Prime Minister made about the garment being confronting.

So that's the way politics is now conducted: dog whistling and fear mongering and testing the waters and distraction, always distraction, and then a retraction, and a hanging out to dry, and suddenly Abbott's being praised by Wilson for making an excellent call?

Maybe it's not so much the art of cat herding, as of sheep herding ...

Meanwhile, having spent months lathering up a fear of the different and the other, the reptiles at the lizard Oz felt the need to pen an editorial, Burka debate a sideshow to serious security issues.

After noting the pointlessness of the security matter - once checked by security, what security benefit sending a demon to sit behind glass in the schoolkids area? - the reptiles offered a consoling word to the jihadist fundies:

Shrieking headlines would be counter-productive in what needs to be a courteous, sensible discussion. 

Shrieking headlines? Oh hush your Murdochian tabloid hypocritical hearts ... where's Greg Sheridan when he's needed to defend the shrieking Daily Terrorists?

But the question is not beyond debate. The Australian believes Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, Nationals MP George Christensen and Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie went too far calling for the burka to be banned from Parliament House. But they are entitled to express their opinions. 
Many Australians agreed with Mr Abbott when he said he found the burka confronting. It is highly favoured in fundamentalist regimes. And the idea of women shrouding themselves entirely simply because they are women seems discriminatory, especially in our society. 

Uh huh. It was only then came the grudging admission ...

These are not reasons to ban it, however. 
 France’s burka ban three years ago was divisive and has isolated some women at home. Personal choice matters, which is why most Catholic women rebelled 50 years ago against wearing head coverings at mass. That said, feminists are curiously quiet about the burka, sharia law and other issues affecting Muslim women. 

Ah that old saw. It's the fault of the feminists, because they haven't managed to overthrow the patriarchy, despite the reptiles at the lizard Oz routinely publishing on the front page leading thoughts by leading feminists ...

There has been, and no doubt will continue to be, ongoing and often noisy debate about the burka, sharia law and issues affecting Muslim women, not least by Muslim women, though their attempts in countries like Saudi Arabia - beloved ally of George B. Bush and with heaps of oil - are frequently stymied by the gang of chauvinists running the country ...

What gets the pond is the way ratbag right wingers like Abbott and the reptiles can suddenly pose as being deeply concerned about women and the rights of women and take on a feminist air at the failings of feminists to be truly feminist ...

When we know their real form ...

Yes there's a real fucking feminist going about his fucking feminist business furthering the fucking business of fucking feminists  ...

Some time ago Marieke Hardy had a few words to say about all this, and it strangely involved the burka:

As a downtrodden, continuously oppressed woman of a certain age I am always grateful when stronger, more eloquent masculine types sweep in to fight battles on my behalf... Perhaps some of you were unaware of the Reverend Fred Nile's unfailing commitment to feminism and the rights of the fairer sex, writing him off as a homophobic, poisonous stiff better suited to making a red-faced ass of himself on Mardi Gras before a crowd of bemused homosexualists. Shame on you, you small-minded, judgemental curs. Why, only last week Nile revealed his latest arresting and forward-thinking hobby - campaigning tirelessly to rid the streets of the burka, claiming loudly that it "oppresses women" and that we delicate types deserve better. Couldn't you just eat him up with a spoon? 
"The wearing of the burka is a form of oppression which has no place in the 21st century," Nile said manfully, possibly dressed in a posing pouch and simultaneously punching a crocodile in the snout. He added that concealment of a person's face - male or female - for any purpose, including discrimination against women, should be banned. 
Oh sure, he also mumbled about various other reasons like "terrorism and anarchism" and implied rather heavily that hidden beneath most Muslim robes is a bloodthirsty towelhead with a lust for revenge, but at the heart of his argument - surely - is a love for all things femme. A fearmongering bigot? Nile? Why, some of his best friends are suicide bombers. He just wants our Allah-worshipping sisters to strut their empowered stuff. Presumably while he shrieks "YOU GO GIRL!" and snaps his fingers encouragingly from the sidelines.
Tony Abbott, too, is a man who loves nothing more than assisting beleaguered damsels. If there's a distressed hymen somewhere out there in the country I'm fairly certain some kind of pubis-related bat signal is sent skywards causing him to slide down a pole and get into his Vagina Mobile and zoom into Gotham City to save the day. (and the rest here)

Hardy didn't mention the strutting, posing righteous feminist Murdoch press, but she'll no doubt be relieved to know that Abbott has intervened, and is now trying to run the parliamentary building with the same confusion and chaos with which he's running the country ... while hanging the presiding officer and Bronnie out to dry.

Uh huh. So it's all Bronnie's fault, is it?

So what about Peta Credlin?

Uh huh. If you were inclined to paranoid conspiracy theories, and had read Peta Credlin backs burqa ban in Federal Parliament, you'd see Abbott's office at the centre of this little storm ...

Meanwhile, what a lovely distraction it's been as the real business of ruining the country goes on ... remind us, Mr. Rowe ...

(Below: and more Rowe here. By golly, he's caught the likeness and he's got him dressed in just the right gear)

But before the pond heads off to the weekend, what else have the reptiles got to offer?

You know, something innovative and different and really insightful and useful and no doubt able to provide a weekend of deep thinking ...

Oh for fuck's sake, always the same shit, day in day out and now, if the pond provides a link, always leading to a begging letter from the paupers of the press.

Well bugger that for a joke.

The blinkered reptiles will never change their spots, or their scales, and they'll never bloody learn as they continue their slide into irrelevance ...

Meanwhile, there are serious questions being asked, but as usual, while the reptiles and Abbott do comedy, it's the comedians who do genuine insights and insightful discussions of serious issues.

Yes Virginia, in the real world, there are matters of life and death being discussed, and though it's now a few days old, here's hoping everyone has John Oliver in their calendar, and have checked out his bit on drones at YouTube here.

Now there's a cat who won't be herded and who makes the Murdochians look as medieval as their mindless master dog whistling up his burqa mayhem ...

For lovers of the abuse of language, this one was a beauty: