In which the Bolter reminds the pond why the onion muncher remains a firm favourite ...

The pond rarely spends time with the Bolter ...

For a starter, there's that matter of the voice. The Bolter has a most irritating voice, with rising inflections and an uncertain tone, at once sounding pathetically needy and reedy, while also at the ready for angry trolling with a faux resonant timbre ...

But what's a voice got to do with a column in a dead-tree killing medium like an ossified Murdochian tabloid?

Well the pond reads the Bolter's column in a way that results in the Bolter's voice echoing in its head like a gong. It's an eerie effect, verging on the psychotic, and it creates a serious sense of alarm.

Whenever that begins to happen, the pond needs a dose of Dibble ...

The other problem?

Whenever the Bolter writes anything, he manages to drag in not just the cat and the kitchen sink and the outdoor dunny, but the onion muncher, with teary melancholy memories of former glory.

Write about life on Mars? Make sure to mention the onion muncher's rich interest in space exploration. Scribble furiously about climate science? Detail the onion muncher's realistic, pragmatic responses to a minor problem.

Do a piece about comrade Bill? Spend an inordinate amount of time brooding on the onion muncher, his loveable flaws and his astonishing successes ...

But wait, you say, there's not much mention of the onion muncher in that opening, just an excuse to set the Albo cat amongst the white bread pigeons ...

Oh foolish mouse, lured into the Bolter cheese trap ...here it comes, here it comes, and as a bonus, there's a photo of the onion muncher flashing his most charming and engaging smile ...

Yet Abbott did it ...

He surely did ...

Nota bene that other Bolter trick, turning a few Fairfax comments into "much of the media." Reading that sort of guff, you'd almost forget that the Murdochians command what's left of much of the traditional tree-killing media ...

But that's how you can pose as a giant-killing seer, offering truth that "much of the media" fails to see ... because, you see, the Murdochians are just as bad as the Fairfaxians, bloody leftists the lot of them, and only the Bolter stays true to the onion muncher's vision.

That's why you get all these Murdochians offering a critique of the budget from a Fairfaxian point of view ...

By golly, was that a budget critique or what?

Steady, gentlemen readers, steady. The pond has long wondered why men can get inflamed by a cartoon ...

Oh okay, the pond is bored by the Bolter, even if that's preferable to getting outraged by the Bolter when he shifts into rabid racist mode.

Still, the pond should grind out the last few Bolter words through gritted teeth...

Well no thanks, no more Bolter, no blogging with the Bolter ... but the pond did spend a little time with the devout Bolter readers to see how the Bolter was flying with his chosen demographic and his flock ...

The pond was surprised to find a few hoppy toad heresies - like give the onion muncher a rest - along with a pleasing conformity, with talk of a left-leaning populist media, which confirms that the Daily Terrorists are classic examples of left-wing populism ... and if you believe that, can we start haggling about the price of the harbour bridge ...

We're doomed, doomed, I tells ya, where's a Donald, someone who'll shake things up a little and lead us all to Valhalla or perhaps the garden of Eden and talking snakes ...

And so to a Rowe cartoon. The pond isn't going to pretend it's doing a pivot or a segue. It's jumping to a Rowe cartoon because every post should mention the Donald, and anything American should at the moment invoke some kind of Treasure of Sierra Madre mirth.

For more dry, ironic laughter of the special counsel kind, as the gold dust blows in the wind, head over to Rowe here ...