In which the Devine stopped clock soothsays election time ...

(Above: and more Pope here, don't look too long at that ramshackle, copper-connected house or you might end up in another Amityville horror re-make).

So the pond might at last return to watching tennis, though there's a lot more grunters, groaners and shriekers still doing the rounds ...

In the meantime, there's election-watching time coming up very soon ...

Naturally this has the reptiles in a state of high anticipation and nervous excitement ...

Now the pond really doesn't care when it happens ... its course is clear enough, with the Greens proposing to preference the Liberals in its electorate, it looks like the Happy Birthday Party or Albo will be getting a vote.

But there were omens and portents suggesting that an early election was on the cards, and in this, there's no surer guide than Miranda the Devine.

Now some might quibble, pointing out that Miranda "hang a greenie from the nearest lamp post" Devine isn't the surest guide to anything, being barking mad, but the pond always adopts the 'stopped clock twice a day' philosophy when it comes to the reptiles.

And the Devine provides the surest sign yet that the reptiles are circling the wagons, and beginning to dig in for Malware ...

Now the pond is pleased on a couple of levels. At last the reptiles have heeded the pond's advice that a huge hagiographic snap of the Devine at the top of her columns suggested narcissism rather than insight.

We're still waiting on the insights, but the neuroses will have to do as a guide.

You can see those at work in the Devine's description of Credlin's defence as laughable .. there's nothing worse, for the Devine, than a self-aggrandising harridan deploying the gender card and a sexist/feminist line ...

And so to the sure sign that an election is in the air.

Note that by the end of the Devine assault, that it's the long-suffering Abbott who is tarred with the Credlin brush ...

Oh dear, no wonder the gay loving, Marxist homosexual propaganda supporting wretch just had to go. As for the myth of a martyred conservative warrior, what a deluded drop kick small l-liberal the wretch is ...

And so in a nanosecond, the Devine upends endless years of blather about the wonders of the wall-puncher, and casts him into the wilderness or at least the tar patch.

Now we must all get behind Malware, who's too gutless to do anything about anyone supporting barking mad notions, not least the NSW Liberals who want a discussion about climate science, for the umpteenth time, as if degutting the CSIRO wasn't enough for them ...

And to add to the pond's anticipation, the reptiles of Oz published a raft of letters in support of Savva. A sample:

Indeed, indeed. Can anything stop this momentum?

Will anyone get behind the martyred conservative warrior, so maligned by the reptiles after being cherished for so long?

Well the pond must give a hat-tip to Louise Adler, scribbling away for Fairfax ...

It didn't take long for Adler to produce gusts, no gales, of laughter in the pond.

Remember that splash above by the dire, pompous, ponderous, solemn, pontificating Kelly that the pond found too tedious to think about for a nanosecond?

Here's what Adler has to say about him ...

As a publisher I have always preferred the account of the main players, however myopic, to the commentary. Those commentators we publish, like the eminence grise Paul Kelly, bring the highest standards of journalism to their craft. Kelly's definitive and award-winning account of the Rudd-Gillard saga, Triumph and Demise, relied on more than 50 on-the-record interviews to underpin his analysis. It would be unthinkable and unprofessional for Kelly not to offer individuals the opportunity to respond to claims. It is Journalism 101. Those political books that stand the test of time are critical and rigorous; they sift through the dross to eliminate innuendo, gossip, and the petty grievances of second raters and wannabes.

No doubt Adler intended éminence grise as a flattering term, though why a publisher should be so careless with the English née French language is another matter ... but here's what a few dictionaries say it means ...

A powerful adviser or decision maker who operates secretly or unofficially.
A person who wields power and influence unofficially or behind the scenes
A person who wields unofficial power, esp. through another person and often surreptitiously or privately.
A French phrase meaning gray eminence, used to refer to someone who wields considerable power behind the scenes. It was originally applied to a French monk who was the private secretary of Cardinal Richelieu, virtual ruler of France under Louis XIII.

No doubt Adler thought it was just a reference to his eminently grey hair, but the pond thanks her for reminding the pond why it rarely bothers with MUP offerings ...

Anyway, the piece is up on Fairfax for anyone to read, and it concludes with a couple of wildly delusional flourishes ...

Some of the gossip that has been published is laughable in its lack of credibility. Take for example the story of Bronwyn Bishop being prevented from issuing a full apology by the PMO. It doesn't make any sense to believe that it took 18 days for Abbott to recognise she needed to go. Isn't it just as likely that Ms Bishop clung on to the bitter end and then turned on her "love child"? 

Well yes, it's possible, you goose, but if you're going to have a go at Savva's version, where's your evidence?

Apart from a goose-like squawk "Isn't it just as likely?", as if somehow that's sufficient to justify dismissing Savva, with a bonus line about gossip being laughable in its lack of credibility. You can't just fling out a gossipy "isn't it just as likely", and expect it to stick ...

If that's the level of the argument, it's just as likely Savva might be right.

Adler even blathers about the need to keep private things private, and then offers what might be called a reference of the kind you'd hand out to an employee who's decided to move on ...

My own dealings with Credlin have been on book industry issues. Across our political differences I have grown to admire her as smart, incisive and astute. In my presence she scrupulously maintained respect for the role of the prime minister, she strenuously maintained a separation between political decisions and strategic advice, and was unfailingly polite. So the demonisation of this professional individual is utterly out of kilter with my own experience. The private lives of other people, public or otherwise, should remain private. Building an argument for a "failed" government on the basis of fantasises of bedroom antics is prurient and salacious sensationalism.

Sadly, the salaciousness is in Adler's head, unless she thinks that the Senator the Hon Concetta Fierravanti-Wells warning of "perceptions" is salacious ...

And then on to this ...

Books worth their place on our shelves need to declare their agendas. Canberra, like all political capitals, is heaving with undeclared conflicts of interests. The genealogical links of each of the major political party would themselves make for riveting tomes. Beyond the beltway it can be very hard to decipher who owes what to whom. Savva is no exception – a former political staffer for Peter Costello (who is a frenemy of Abbott's) and columnist who has spent the past two years fulminating against the chief-of-staff. Sometimes people, we just need to join the dots. 
Might this not simply be one more dispiriting and self-serving revenge tale rather than the independent and forthright analysis readers deserve?

And Adler started off with the reptile Kelly as offering the sort of independent and forthright analysis readers deserve?

While at the same time failing to connect the very obvious dots that motivated Savva?

Go on, you can mention her Thatcher-bottom patting husband, and while you're at it, how about mentioning that both Credlin and Abbott infamously proposed to Chris Mitchell that Savva be moved along?

A proposition that's never been denied, and is revealing as well as infamous. If that's professional behaviour, then the pond will have to search the dictionaries for a new definition of 'professional.'

Let me know, Ms Adler, how you'd feel at someone calling up the chair of the MUP board proposing you be moved along because of your dingbat affection for the pompous Paul Kelly?

By the end of Adler's superficial, simpering piece, a stray reader would find it extremely difficult to understand why Abbott's colleagues voted to replace him ...

The struggle to find a replacement for the Krispy Kreme Kid is clearly imposing a strain on the Yarra Pravda to find some space-fillers...

But at least the Fairfaxians still have Rowe at the AFR ... and more Rowe here ...