In which the pond joins the former chairman in a war on the reptiles ...

With no Oreo in sight this Monday - how fickle and cruel the reptiles can be - the pond wanted some eye-catching candy, and what better sight than the former Chairman Rudd, born to rule ...

Oh sure there were even bigger losers and dropkicks on parade this day that might have done the job with a brutal dose of stupidity ...

But recently the  Fairfaxians have been celebrating the chairman and his war on the reptiles ... with this ...

Rudd's second prime ministerial regret: "I regret deferring constantly to the advice of my cabinet colleagues and not declaring open war on News Corporation.

"It became clear early in the government's life that, when we would not commit to the News Corporation agenda, they set out to destroy the government. We had many cabinet discussions about it. The advice of many, many of the cabinet colleagues was 'Don't do it because it would only get worse'. "I said, 'How, precisely, could it be worse?'" Rudd and his government continued to try to work with Rupert Murdoch's group, often trying to appease it, in vain.

... leading to this (here for those who care) ...

The Ruddster's idea of a bitter relentless war to the death? Well even Hartcher had to note a certain inconsistency...

Please allow the pond to dumpster dive back into ancient reptile front pages ...

  

Yes, there he is in the banner, smirking away, and there he is in the centre of the page, smirking away and handing out advice to comrade Bill, and he was elsewhere in the reptile rag back in October, with this sort of narcissism rampantly on parade ...

And so on ...

How to conduct a war with Murdoch? Publish a story with your name on it. That'll learn 'em, oh that'll teach 'em it's a serious war, as even Hartcher had to sigh ...

Even this week Rudd gave an interview to Murdoch's local flagship, The Australian. Even as he denounced the group, he was co-operating with it, a pragmatic surrender that testifies to Murdoch's market power.

Or a pragmatic surrender that testifies to innate hubris and narcissism, a man with a book to sell, and determined to exact yet another moment of glory before the remainder shelves call...

But enough of the perfidious Ruddster, the pond must get serious for the nonce, and so, in lieu of a light Oreo snack - not that the pond is bitter - to another reptile story ...

Yes, it's another study in tone deaf political mayhem, and who are the recalcitrant villains of the piece?

The restless recalcitrants accuse their colleagues?

Yep, it's the reptiles currying favour by giving space to the barking mad fundamentalists, because that's what reptiles must do ...

Actually that google splash left ScoMo and the pastie Hastie off the list of the tone deaf, but no doubt they'll turn up by the end ...

A chorus? It's just a few maladroit grumblebum ratbags of the basest kind, unwilling to recognise the result of the vastly expensive postal survey and doing the best to make its results useless and voidable ... so that we all might wonder why Malware bothered with such an expensive attempt to subvert the fundamentalist rump, when the reptiles and the rump will never give up, never surrender ...

Not like a craven, quisling former Chairman Rudd ...

See how it works ... see how it plays out, this relentless bitter war to the death ...

Suddenly a Liberal member's private bill becomes a Green/Labor bill?

Where's a defiant former chairman Rudd waging relentless ongoing war with the reptile trouble-makers, no quarter given, a battle to the bitter end, when he's needed?

So sorry you asked, and so to the final gobbet of wretched hold-outs ... and surely the pastie Hastie will now join ScoMo in a valiant rearguard action as they seek to make the result of the vastly expensive postal survey sublimely irrelevant to their thoughts and deeds...

We all know where this opaque, mystifying fundamentalist conservatism ended up in Queensland this week .. 

Happily, it was celebrated by David Rowe ...

There is, as usual, more Rowe here, with this celebratory re-tweet also to be found ...

Hmmm, it's probably not exactly the right time to note that David Pope seems a tad tall. Who knew?

And so to another Rowe, celebrating Malware's approach to a reptile summer with a few more curly ones about the postal survey likely to be tossed down the pitch in a lazy way..

Well if Catherine McGregor can forget all that nonsense about the onion muncher and the unforgiving recalcitrant phobic reptiles, and join the ABC and talk of cricket, so can the pond ...

Oops, what's that malignant red cherry positioned at silly leg? Watch out ...