We are all Republicans now ...

David Rowe (and more Rowe here) was in fine form this morning:

Okay, let's get the reference out of the way first:

Ah the pond loves the whiff of art in the morning - and yes Greg Hunt you can wiki Fuseli here and learn more about his nightmares.

Freud before Freud, and you'd swear it was a ripe bit of Victorianism, ideally suited to the Abbott mindset, but it's actually a bit earlier than that. Still the pond will accept Credlin as a horse's head and Rupert Murdoch as a wicked, perverted gnome.

Well we all know why Rowe traipsed off into a homage to Fuseli and art.

It's all the fault of that pesky American sticking his dirty gothic fingers into domestic politics:

Uh huh. Fairness has got nothing to do with it. Cruelty, always with the cruelty and the pain ...

Patriotic duty ... on charged the five hundred, down into the valley of guns ...

As a result, the pond stays in a state of high bemusement.

As Peter Fitzgerald wondered a few days ago, where have all the monarchists gone?

It seems we all - krazed members of the kommentariat included - are republicans now, such is the hostility to the Sir Duke and all he stands for ...

As for Peta Credlin, Chairman Rupert has put Tony Abbott in a sticky spot, by joining the likes of that shrieking banshee Miranda the Devine in demanding the head of Credlin, even as it seems clear that it was Abbott's folly that led to the trouble. It was, after all, a Captain's pick, not the hapless coach dragging the kit around.

So Credlin, routinely accused of being too controlling, is now being abused for not being controlling enough, and for allowing a rampant monarchist King Kong to sir the Duke.

It's just another example of that old Freudian concept of displacement, emotional transference, where the anger that should be directed at the master is directed at the servant, because there's too much at stake in an attack on the master.

So instead the banshees howl, and it's that very old, and post Gillard routine, kill the bitch, ditch the witch, being re-enacted yet again.

But here's the rub, and the horn of the dilemma for Abbott. (how the pond loves horny dilemmas).

If he now ditches Credlin, he will be seen to be folding to his American master, and the American master's yowling tribe of hired banshees. He will be automatically judged and found wanting. So does he do a pick and stick, or does he do the ritual sacrifice? Either way he loses ...

It's as good a way to start the morning as the pond could imagine.

Here's Abbott starting off with just a dash of Anglo eccentricity and colonial fawning, thinking where's the harm, and landing deep in republican do dah.

And now it gets worse. You see, the Bolter's baaaack, and he's carrying an axe. Oh sure the blog posting is bland enough:

Very pessimistic? Column on Friday?

Well it's not hard to guess the tone of the column, because the Bolter has spoken already:

(The rest of the story, with the working links, at the ABC here).

And then there's the rest of the pack of this chattering church of latter day republicans, still carrying on, in chagrin, indignation or in warning mode, and littering the opinion pages of the reptile Oz:

Yep, there's the chief knob polisher himself, one time abject glorifier of Tony Abbott, getting indignant, and blathering on about fairness.

For some bizarre reason - perhaps a sense of decency or even an attempt to connect with honesty - the bouffant one starts off by pointing out that Abbott's folly, the knights and the dames and the sir Duke thingy - were entirely the work of Abbott, and that Credlin unsuccessfully opposed the introduction of the knightmares and the demonic dames.

So it's not Credlin's fault, but she must pay the ultimate price. Ditch the witch, kill the bitch, it's the only, the minimum way, to give a sign of true contrition.

And then with Credlin gone, and Abbott blundering on into the next pit of folly, as he surely will, what then? Will the next chief of staff be dragged up to the guillotine for a ritual sacrifice?

It's obvious enough. If anyone should fall on their sword as a result of the monarchist clap trap that infests Abbott's brain, it should be Abbott. He's the one with the worm in the rose ... or maybe he is the worm in the rose ...

As for Savva, she's not having any of the Credlin witch hunt, but since we're in Freudian mode, note first the attached illustration. Well we could be here all day if we wanted to contemplate the role of the Joker, the Jester, the super ego and the id in life, so let's just cut to the chase:

Steady. Too much Savva in one gulp can be harmful to the system. Let us note that Savva identifies, correctly, that the current folly is all the work of a foolish man, and now let us proceed in carefully measured gobbets:

Uh huh. So already the numbers are being counted, and there's at least 15 to 20 so alienated they'd vote for the likes of Mal Brough.

Speaking of the rough Brough, slouching towards Canberra, let's have a final gobbet:

Uh huh. It's on. And the ritual sacrifice of Credlin won't stay the baying of the hounds, or the quest for blood. Oh yes, let there be blood ...

Look, they're all at it. Every crazed monarchist or one time Abbott worshipper is stepping out of the closet:

Cue the magic water man:

Say what?

Oh okay, spoiler alert, there was a punchline after that:

But he cannot beat the combination of Robotic Tony and Bill Short-term.

There's more, but you know how to google. Why you might even learn, if you google, that Campbell Newman is in danger of losing his seat.

What's that you say?

Once again the pond has been reduced to passive vessel status, recycling the thoughts of the reptiles as they hammer away at the Abbott they once worshipped?

Well what else can the pond do?

Once upon a time, the pond had daily fun pillorying the Abbott lovers, and the konservative krazed right wing kommentariat, as they went about their monarchist, colonial deregulatory business, making the rich richer and the poor poorer, ensuring by legislative parry and thrust that it would be so and thus forever.

Now they're all in an uproar more rabid than the pond could have imagined.

Yes, we are all republicans now ...

And remarkably cartoonists are still finding comedy in the situation, despite the pond and First Dog's conviction that the affair was now beyond satire (and you can find the Fairfax stable of cartoonists here).