In which the bromancer enters the pond competition to find the reptile panderer of the year ...

No sooner than Dame Slap romps away the winner of a pond competition, the reptiles brazenly force the pond to open up a new competition ...

Who is the best panderer?

Now the meaning of pandering is diverse - free dictionary a definition here - but there's little doubt that the reptiles have long studied pandering and made it into both an art and a science.

The pickings are so rich that perhaps the competition should be divided into domestic and international.

Today's domestic panderer is surely exemplary ...

But unless the salivating Hansonist Savva was offered a domestic competition, she'd be blown out of the water by the blathering bromancer surveying the international scene ...

Only the bromancer could offer up a splash which puts "may be clumsy" with "early signs are that President gets sound advice" ...

The google splash was also encouraging ...

As surely as the sun rises to illuminate the bromancer's backside, the professional panderer will manage to jump from "serious crisis" to "much of the hysterical", which will surely lead the panderer into dismissing "hysterical reaction" ... though "hysterical coverage" would also be to the point ...

This then is a master class in pandering, up there with the Sydney piano competition ...

So that's the title, the honour and the trophy the reptiles are competing for:

"Shameless political panderer of the month", gateway to the pond's panderer of the year award.

Play on Macduff, or bromancer ...

Now in the real world, as Trump doubled down on Flynn's dismissal, calling him a great man, and blaming fake news and very un-American leaks, while killing off for good any chance of a two state solution and handing everything over to Netanyahu, the front page of a real newspaper might look something like this ...

Confronted by this sort of reality, it takes a special pandering skill to come up with a line like...

...Steve Bannon ...also holds pretty messianic far-right views on national security and the clash of civilisations. It’s not that everything in these views is wrong, but they seem to lack balance, prudence, context and administrative competence.

It's not that there's anything wrong with pretty messianic far right views ... why the bromancer has partaken of Catholic fundamentalist end of world nonsense in his time too ...

Faced with this epic pandering, the reptiles, in a desperate attempt to provide an alternative voice to the pandering bromancer, did their usual trick of taking a bit of coverage from the WSJ:

Dysfunction?

The panderer knows how to dismiss that sort of idle chatter ...

Much of the hysterical reaction to Donald Trump around the world is wildly out of proportion to any mistake or bad move that he might have made.

Anybody who watched television last night would have been impressed by the haggard, worn-down way that Kellyanne Conway attempted to defend the indefensible while being thrashed with a lettuce leaf by Matt Lauer ...

And then the lunatics in the asylum of Morning Joe banned her from appearing because she's too mad even for that mad house ... (Fortune, here)

So what does the WSJ think?

Chaos and confusion ... and the WSJ hadn't quite finished ...

Pearl Harbour moment! Constant damage control! Consistent flashpoint! Absolute dysfunction!

Perhaps this coverage is some sort of reaction to the dispute recently reported in the NY Times, Top Wall Street Journal Editor Defends Trump Coverage, and at the soon to be dismantled NPR, 'Wall Street Journal' Editor Defends Trump Coverage At Staff Meeting ...

But this sort of idle, wretched, hysterical reporting, albeit by fellow Murdochian reptiles, is a mere doddle to defeat when an expert panderer to power is to hand ...

And so the bromancer blithely soothes the water and wishes the Donald well, while handing out a floral tribute to Malware, and at the same time calling Hugh White ineffably and consistently silly.

They used to have a saying in Tamworth, that it takes one to know one, and judging by the rest of the bromancer's scribble, he's surely ineffable ...

Now in the context of a fulsome panderer, the pond will allow the bromancer's use of Trump fulsomely recommitting to Japan (though the ritual humiliation of the Japanese leader, for anyone aware of the innate conservative Japanese sense of face and honour, was a wonder to behold) ...

In this context, the pond employs the Oxford dictionary gambit ...

...the word is still often used in its original sense of ‘abundant’, especially in sentences such as she was fulsome in her praise for the people who organized it, and this use can give rise to ambiguity: for one speaker, fulsome praise may be a genuine compliment, whereas for others it will be interpreted as an insult ...

Yes it takes exceptional skill for a panderer to muddy the waters by confusing flattery to an excessive degree with abundant commitment ...

But the capper came with the bromancer's notion that the losing of Flynn is just a road bump on the way to a glorious, good and strong Republican foreign policy ... because somehow after three or so weeks of chaos, soon the rubber will hit the road and all will be well ...

It remains overwhelmingly important that in some measure the Trump administration succeed?

The pond is ready to be underwhelmed, and the wishful thinking - a sure sign of a panderer caught in the act of self-pleasuring - brought the lyrics of an old song bubbling into the pond's mind ...

Wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin' 

Plannin' and dreamin' each night of his charms 

That won't get you into his arms

Can anybody top the panderer's effort on the international stage this day? The pond very much doubts it.

The competition will be held open for a few days more, so that all comers may tackle this giant, but the judges were tempted to throw the laurel wreath to the bromancer and leave the field ...

Hey nonny no, on we go, and as the United States painfully, and reluctantly explore the Donald's Russian connections, this bromancer piece will be viewed as a landmark ... or perhaps this Rowe cartoon will, and more Rowe here ...