In which Pond Trucking carts truckloads more of the case for the Pellist defence ...

What a delicious array of bon bons the reptiles have delivered this day.

So many temptations, so many treats, though you know what they say about gorging on liquorice all sorts. Soon enough you'll be trotting off the toilet. It might seem cruel to compare the dog botherer to a laxative, but that's the way he works on the pond.

Even so there's something unnerving about that new leering snap the reptiles have fixed him up with in the splash: a hint of the Uncle Ernies, perhaps a suggestion of a mint too many, or is it just an old school smug, complacent smirk?

Whatever, the pond is always willing to get in to the dog botherer mood, so while we're talking about making people face the music, how about we make the war criminals and their lackeys sing a song of repentance?

Sorry, this is how the tune goes when you avoid facing the music:

Iraq really forms the backdrop of my whole time with Alexander really. A few weeks after I started working with him the international debate about Iraq and what needs to be done began. So I’ve seen Alexander where the Iraq issue from its infancy from beginning to talk about what we should do as an international community to combat Saddam Hussein and the threat he posed right through the United Nations process of resolutions and trying to get Iraq to comply with those resolutions to the formation of the Coalition and the start of the, the war. I was with Alexander when he went in only a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein to see the newly liberated Iraq. There was a certain amount of obviously satisfaction at that stage that that had happened and so quickly and of course Alexander’s dealt with all the aftermath. The ongoing violence the great success of the elections and democratic process the fantastic optics of seeing people embrace democracy there and then the horrible reality of that being undermined by violence and I’ve been back into Iraq with him since and so Alexander’s really had a huge focus on Iraq over the past five years. But it’s just been the backdrop its just one issue it’s been very, very hard and at times its been very, very difficult to mount the argument because it’s a difficult argument to mount and you really have to run a complicated debate often with people. It’s difficult for people to understand how crucial this battle this struggle in the middle east for their own security and Australia. That’s one of our great challenges as a government is to explain to people how this affects their security and the security of the entire world and, and that’s, that’s a debate we’re still running today. So Alexander’s been at the forefront of that debate through the success and through the terrible set backs and he’s committed to it today and it still takes up a lot of his time today. But on top of that there’s all the other issues you have to deal with. 
There are there are dark moments in an issue like Iraq because some of the terrible things that have happened but I’ve never had any doubts and I’ve never seen Alexander have any doubts about the fact that this was the right thing to do and needed to be done and needs to be seen through and one now because I suppose he has a context and those in our office we have we have a good understanding of the context of this and we always think about the consequences of not doing anything and that’s what’s often missing from debate. People think that if we don’t have you know if we all ran away from Iraq then it wouldn’t be there. Well the question is what would be there? What would be the issue you’re dealing with there and is that worse than what we’ve got now? Of course there are dark moments terribly dark moments when you hear news of Australians being killed or Iraqi’s being killed, there are huge numbers of Iraqi’s being killed by terrorists and you never become immune to that. You see it as a set back for, for what Iraqi’s want and you see it against the context of being there and meeting people you know. I’ve sat there in meetings Alexander and I have sat there with Iraqi’s showing us the ink on their fingers you know with pride you know they’ve gone out and lined up and voted and risked being attacked by terrorists because they wanted to vote a government in. It’s tremendously uplifting to meet those people and see their pride and you know that’s what they want. We don’t see enough of that we see the terrible consequences of a terrorist attack the next day that’s designed to thwart those people but to the Iraqi people themselves to have the chance to meet them and see the way they’re embracing this you know it gives you heart. But the dark moments are there when there is violence and, and when Douglas Wood was, was a hostage and you’re working day and night with the Department and Alexander’s working day and night with the Department to really to be honest there were many times we thought that it was almost hopeless but to have success there was just wonderful so you have you have moments of high encouragement as well as well as the dark moments the moments of sadness and I think that the trick is to maintain an even path through that. You have those moments you have those thoughts about it but it’s a matter of being clear in your head in what you’re trying to achieve and keep doing the work. (here)

Sweet long absent lord, that was in 2007, and look at the mess in the middle east now, and this self-serving, self-seeking, self-righteous clown has the chutzpah to call for Assange to face the music...

Take him away Pythons, for crimes against comedy and humanity, so we can get to the agonising choice the pond must make ...

Oh dear, time amongst the warriors for the homophobic Catholic church, or time spent with the warriors celebrating the deeds of the Pellists ...

Well the pond has done time amongst the homophobes this week, and to tell the truth, anything Shanahan might offer up against experts like Cory and the ensen of Christ would be dull, so in the end, it was inevitable that prattling Polonius would win out.

The pond is always in need of a history lesson, and besides Polonius always offers the best of both worlds ...

Fizz and liquorice! A favourite of the pond's departed father ...

Well no point mucking about, time to get on with berating the ABC in a SOP operation, and lordy lordy, do they deserve a berating.

How is Paul Sheehan still a thing? What about that smackdown in The Monthly?

It’s no secret that regular columnists get scant editorial attention. But they are examined much more carefully when their columns are moved to page one. And it was exactly the sensationalist and – let’s be clear – racist nature of its content that had it bumped to the front of the paper. Senior eyes, considered eyes, made that decision. They made it relying on the journalistic integrity of an agenda-soaked writer who believes in magical water, and the word of a woman who would have been cast into extreme doubt by just a Google search or a single phone call. 
“In the story recounted to me by Louise,” wrote Sheehan amid the litter of excuses in the mea culpa he published last night, “she made insulting references to rapes committed by Middle Eastern men. I had wrongly amplified this insult by including her words in the column.” 
Again, that’s not true. Because the whole piece was an insult. It was a bald accusation that dozens of Muslim men were going on rape sprees without detection, and that the police were ignoring it. It was an accusation made on the flimsiest proof, at the maximum volume. By the time this crawling pseudo-correction was made, the column had already been shared 11,000 times. It’s all too little, and much, much too late.

And so on, but the pond digresses. We must revert to Polonius, who in his own humble way has from time to time helped demonise Lebanese and such like folk, and who can be relied upon to preach on behalf of the Pellists:

Splendid stuff. So they were in it together, as thick as thieves! What an excellent case for the defence...

Please, do go on ...

Indeed, indeed, and that swept away any anxiety the pond might have had about Polonius prattling on about the apparent fact that the Victorian police had a vested interest in the Royal Commission. After all, no crimes here, or at least none to speak of, so move on people, move on ...

Speaking of the court of public opinion, the pond should note, before we get onto more of the case for the defence, that Polonius has been a loyal and faithful servant for a long time, even in his Fairfax days and even when the devious secularist David Marr suggested that perhaps Pell had been part of the problem rather than the solution ...

That's easy to find here, but it doesn't really satisfy in the way that today's outing does ...

Let us turn to the last gobbet to see how it's done ...

What an expert:

1. Blather on endlessly about the court of public opinion, while mounting a vigorous defence in the court of public opinion (snidely suggest someone is a fill-in while you're at it, and simply claim there is no evidence, and psst, please don't go looking for evidence, that would be offensive);

2. Do obligatory and necessary handwringing. After all, pedophilia is a grievous crime.

3. Create a little wriggle room. Blame the victims. Let's face it, a lot of them make it up. You simply can't trust them. You're much better off trusting the Church and Cardinal Pell. After all, what harm did the church do? What's wrong with Pell trying to minimise the damage and resorting to legalisms?

Sure the Melbourne Response might have been designed to save a motza, but where's the harm in that?

But wait there's more, because the reptile editorialist also leapt to the Pellist defence this day.

It too follows the necessary pro forma:

2. Do obligatory and necessary handwringing. After all, pedophilia is a grievous crime.

But then create some wriggle room. Must look after the Pellists. Must bemoan confected outrage, because after all, what are these victims carrying on about ...

Uh huh, and having been offensive, make sure to trowel on a little hot butter empathy in the final par.

But what about that vexatious, difficult secularist David Marr just yesterday? There's much, much more here, but this'll do, this'll do ...

...Pell became archbishop of Melbourne in July 1996 and set about addressing the scandals of abuse in his archdiocese by establishing a church commission he called the Melbourne Response. .
He and his supporters advance this as proof that Pell was championing the cause of victims. Perhaps, but the then premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, had threatened him with a royal commission by if he didn’t put the church’s house in order.
His response offered investigation and counselling but – unlike the response soon implemented by the Catholic church in the rest of Australia – set low, capped limits on payouts to victims. It would save his archdiocese many millions of dollars.
The royal commission has already quizzed Pell about the Melbourne Response. Next week he may be quizzed about other aspects of his conduct as archbishop of Melbourne, particularly his failure to dismiss – or break ties with – a number of questionable priests. There was Searson who took months to fire, and Father Barry Robinson who had fled Boston rather than prove – as he claimed – that the boy he was having sex with was over the age of consent. Pell gave him a Melbourne parish where he served – apparently blamelessly – until the Boston Globe broke his story in 2004.
And then there was Ronald Pickering. Everyone knew Pickering drank and had a vile temper, but he put on a fine mass with lots of bells, smells, Latin and children’s choirs. The choir and the altar were his hunting ground.
Genevieve Grant, a young teacher at St James Primary School, says she tried to warn Pell about Pickering in 1989. He says: “No teacher spoke to me alleging sexual improprieties by Father Pickering on students.”
Four years later Pickering disappeared one night from his parish after, according to the Age, “a senior person in Victoria’s Catholic hierarchy” tipped him off that one of his victims was about to sue.
Pickering hid in England. The Melbourne archdiocese seems never to have investigated allegations that came to light about Pickering. The Catholic Insurance Office could never get hold of him. Every month, Pell paid the fugitive the modest stipend of a retired priest. 
“I was obliged in canon law to do that,” he told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry. “And I did that.” But his successor Archbishop Denis Hart took a different view. He immediately stopped the payments. Pickering died in England in 2009.

This is the reptiles' decisive break from the past?

If only there was genuine hellfire, so that all the apologists for the church and the behaviour of its servants, along with the actual miscreants, and those in authority who managed the cover-up, might see them serve their time in eternity in befitting surroundings.

But it's likely many of them favour the Oscar Wilde solution, which is intrinsically Catholic. Sin away with all your might, and then a final confession will wipe the slate clean.

Which is why the pond insists you don't go away without a frock sighting ...

Vanity, all is vanity under the sun?

Nope, got to keep those payments under control. A good frock doesn't come cheap these days, and as for the dry cleaning, oi vey ...