Not one word of contrition, remorse, or understanding ... but plenty of flammable liquids and matches ...

Of course the pond was wildly pleased to note that its favourite senior writer was still at the heart of the storm:

The real point of the story, here, was the chance it offered to recycle fond memories of the senior writer rifling through the bins of Cosmo when editing rival Cleo, and securing an interview with victims of the London bombings by carrying a bunch of flowers and looking upset ...

Naturally the Daily Flail seized the moment to run Ms Markson's encounters on the cat walk of life ... thank the long absent lord there's no sexism in the British press as they ripped off Fairfax and added a few Getty images ... while the Graudian took the chance here to purse lips and tut-tut:

Markson’s stories filed from the trip have not acknowledged that the tour was organised by Jewish lobby groups.

Such investigative forays always reminds the pond of that epic Peter Carrette achievement way back when, remembered in 2005 at Fairfax here ...

Yes, when it comes to the gutter bins of life, the reptiles have been doing vulgarity and lack of discretion for a long time ...

But enough of pleasant distractions, because this media Monday, the war mongers are in full cry, and there is no bigger war monger than the cheerleading war monger in chief, the grandiose to the point of delusional the Bolter.

In fact the Bolter's piece this day so delusional, so demanding, such an astonishing ambit claim, such a preposterous log book list of things that must be done, that the pond felt the need to dip into some refreshments to sustain it on the tedious journey:

Uh huh. And so to the delusional ambit claims, whereby, it seems, Malware must solve all the world's problems, and in a trice too, please:

Boots on the ground. It reminded the pond of where we landed last time we followed the Bolter's advice, and so, it's time to pause for some refreshments, thanks to Robert Manne in The Coalition of the Shilling:

Here is Andrew Bolt following the 2005 election: “At last, democracy has come to Iraq. And yet our sneering ‘elite’ insist it would have been better to leave the murderous Saddam alone. This is what we who backed the liberation of Iraq dreamed of, but what our ‘peace’ movement tried so shamefully to stop. Millions of Iraqis on Sunday – wonderful Sunday – proved they would risk death for democracy showing that, yes indeed, Arabs love freedom, too.” 
Unhappily Bolt’s faith in the Arab love of democracy has recently faded. As Iraq disintegrated before our eyes, he informed his readers: “The blame game over Iraq – Bush’s fault? Obama’s? – should not blind us to the real cause of the mayhem. It isn’t the West. What we see in Iraq are Muslims killing Muslims and in the name of Islam.” Freedom-loving Arabs had now become for Bolt murderous Muslims, ingrates unworthy of the arms and treasure wasted upon them in that noble Western enterprise, the invasion of Iraq.

Ah there's better, there is an antidote to the kool aid. There's a lot more in Murdoch's War as well:

If Sheridan’s great contribution to the preparations for war was to pass off the public relations of the Bush administration as undisputable fact, Bolt’s was to transform the Iraq debate into a main theatre of the Left–Right culture war. On December 5, 2002, in an attack on one of his favourite targets, Greens leader Bob Brown, Bolt wrote of “our growing church of appeasers – groovy priests, apologists for Muslim terrorists, cultural relativists, ageing Marxists, New Age romantics, cause junkies and far Left agitators”. Phillip Adams, who had left the Communist Party 50 years before, was routinely described as an “ex-Communist”. Bob Ellis was “sewer-brained”. Bolt imported into Australian journalism the gutter tone of Murdoch’s New York Post. 
Yet his aggression passed beyond abuse. He consistently insinuated that opponents of the war were indifferent to the sufferings of Saddam’s victims and were playing Saddam’s game. “They are against war – but for murder,” he wrote on one occasion. “For tyranny. For terror. And when they talk of peace, Saddam laughs.” Another time, he claimed: “When Labor’s Carmen Lawrence says she’s against war, she is for a killer who dropped nerve gas on tens of thousands of Kurdish men, women and children and wiped out Iraq’s Marsh Arabs, too.” To grasp the loathsome quality of this argument, I suggest conservatives replace “Carmen Lawrence” in that sentence with the name of a somewhat more important opponent of the war – Pope John Paul II.

But the pond cannot swig too deeply of this lovely drop, because it's back for another bite of the snake.

What's the bet the Bolter will ask Malware to come up with a plan to destroy IS, and never mind that the issue and the problem has been the focus of many minds for a number of years?

Ah, the old appeasement line. Is that better than this sort of guff, as we pause for another swig from that lovely drop of vintage Manne?

For the war party the supposed triumph of democracy in Iraq also provided the occasion for a new offensive in their perpetual culture war against the internal enemy. When US troops reached Baghdad, The Australian published an editorial, “Coalition of the Whining Got it Wrong”, which ended with these words: “Never underestimate the power of ideology and myth – in this case anti-Americanism – to trump reality. But at least we know for sure it is not love, but being a left-wing intellectual, that means never having to say you’re sorry.” At the end of his ecstatic election commentary, Bolt urged his readers not to “forget or forgive the enemies of this joy and this freedom”.

And so to more of the usual talking points, and the fear and the hysteria and the mayhem that we know the reptiles love to produce:

Yes, it's time for more of the bloodied idiot supreme, defiant in his bloodiness and blood-thirstiness. One can never have enough blood,  abroad or at home:

Indeed, indeed, how is it possible to screen innocent Europeans in case a  Bolter lands in our midst?

Time for another refreshing draught of Manne ale.

Is there something in this antidote to the kool aid which might offer a reminder of where the Bolter, cheerleader in chief, once prodded the nation to go?

Let me put this plainly. The leaders of the Australian war party – John Howard, Rupert Murdoch, Alexander Downer – and their most influential cheerleaders – Chris Mitchell, Andrew Bolt, Greg Sheridan – bear some responsibility for the deaths of half a million Iraqis, for the incalculable number of deaths still to come and for the unimaginable suffering that has been endured by the people of Iraq since the invasion of their country. And yet so far as I am aware – their supreme self-confidence apparently unaffected by the catastrophe they had helped unleash in Iraq – not one of these warriors of the right has expressed even one word of contrition or remorse.

Yes, that'll do nicely.

It would be wrong to expect contrition or remorse. Scorpions must do what scorpions must do.

But what's the real point of all this frothing and foaming by the Bolter?

The pond's already run this Rowe, but once more won't hurt, because it answers the question so succinctly, and besides there's oodles of good Rowe here for jaded palates, albeit in less satisfying format than can be found at the twittering Rowe here ...