In which the pond enjoys a theatrical outing with the bromancer, before settling in to some existential torture with ancient Troy ...

 

No Groaning on a Tuesday? And where is nattering "Ned"? 

Questions, always questions. Not that the pond minds that much, disappearing the two old drones into the attic or the cornfield provides some blessed peace and quiet ...

Meanwhile, over at Crikey, the swishing Switzer copped a grundling, and the pond would like to add it to the record ... (sorry, there's a paywall at the end of that link)...

...Did the Liberal centre have an inkling it might lose this? Apparently the very core did, but the wider penumbra did not, with passes to the Saturday night shindig being given out willy-nilly (when a loss is likely, the location becomes secret, like a speakeasy). And a possibility is that they consciously took the risk of dropping in a candidate like Campbell as a way of reconnecting to the teal seats.
Twenty-four hours later, some were trying to spin it. John Ferguson, the world’s oldest copy-boy, filed a rat-a-tat piece in The Australian that read as if he had dictated it from his phone at a pub bar to the world’s last copy-taker, noting, “This was an earthquake for the Liberal Party, but not as surprising as the political establishment is suggesting.” 
Also in the Oz, the ever reliably wrong Tom Tomasevitch Switzerov reassured the faithful that things are not as bad as they look. The Liberal Party becomes a ruthless, focused organisation when it needs to be, Switzer noted. People were writing it off in 1993. What does it need to do? “Call out the corporates who act like social activists. Condemn the ‘sensitivity readers’ who censor children’s books.” Yep, that was all they were talking about at the Boronia Mall*.

That asterix (sorry, the gall of the Gaul to get in the way) led somewhere, as asterisks are wont to do ...

*Switzer hilariously repeats a common error, suggesting: “Meanwhile, the cultural left has made a ‘long march through the institutions’, unconsciously following the model laid out by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci nearly a century ago.”
Two things. Firstly, Gramsci never said that. There is no record of it. A moment’s thought would tell you why. The phrase is a repurposing of Mao’s famous 1930s “long march”, and was used by German left leader Rudi Dutschke in 1967 to suggest an alternative strategy for the left, with no prospect of revolution. Secondly, what do you mean “unconsciously”? From the late 1970s onwards, the left and progressives have been very consciously pursuing this strategy. That’s where your Gramsci comes in. Progressives didn’t acquire this empire in a fit of absent-mindedness. Why does Switzer get this quote wrong and misunderstand what has occurred? Because he’s a little complacent and a little intellectually mediocre, and that is one of the right’s problems at the moment.

A little? Oh come on, the pond expected a better grundling than that ...

Meanwhile, over at the Oz, a lesser member of the Kelly gang was out and about, doing lesser work than "Ned" ...

 

Yeah, nah ... if that's handing the mutton Dutton a way forward, then the head teacher might still have a problem ...

You see Joe, the lesser Leeser is still banging on about the pointlessness of the voice, so what's new about that? He's still wasting chalk, while the class and the pond have scarpered from the room ...

What else?

What a disappointing mob. There's the lizard Oz pretending it cares about the death of a leader, while elsewhere doing everything it can to disappoint said leader, while right at the top was the bromancer blathering on about the mango Mussolini ...

The pond had a bet with itself as to who would be the first reptile down under to join the convict chorus line and sing the song that the Donald was above the law ... but there was little pleasure to be had in the winning of the bet...

Ah, the old "he did do some good things" routine ... the bromancer never gets tired of that one. 

Brexit did produce some good things, fucking the planet did produce some good things, and so on and so forth ... and the pond supposes that the bromancer did provide an opportunity for a few cartoons, which is always a good thing ...

On a typical day, the bromancer is so barking mad north by north west that he might find a spot on Sky after dark or on Faux Noise, and how lucky he is that the ABC is so accommodating ...

But back to the lesson in apologetics, worthy of a medieval Catholic theologian ...

Credible conservative judges? More beer! And cult membership for women preferred ...

But the pond is only here for the cartoons ... because there's a genuine business opportunity for snake oil sales people ...

That calls to mind the way John Oliver ended his recent rant about solitary confinement - so much cruelty, so little time - with a light-hearted romp through the house of mouse's copyright blues ...

You had to be there to enjoy it ...

By this point, it will be clear that the pond is also only here for the theatrics, or the low comedy of the apologetics ...

Like many in the United States, the bromancer doesn't actually have a clue what's in the indictment. All will become clear in due course, perhaps even today, but tossing around words like "wicked" is undiluted mango Mussolini, or perhaps undiluted wicked witch Disney ...

Can't the bromancer be content with so much winning?

And so to the slick Willy defence, which naturally means skating past the Nixon affair ...

Indeedy do, and there's a reminder that lying just for the sake of lying is perfectly fine in the world of the bromancer, and what an incredible liar the Donald has been, and how splendidly he's felt up all sorts of women ...

And so to the final gobbet ...

So the mango Mussolini is all a Democrat conspiracy and Faux Noise and Tuckyo and his like have had nothing to do with it?

As for all those interminable, endless chants of "lock her up"? 

It's been great fun, this lesson in medieval theological apologetics, and perhaps that last cartoon is a tad optimistic, but meanwhile, what to do in the absence of a decent, dinkum groaning by way of a bonus?

The pond can't believe it turned to ancient Troy, but anything to do with ruins has an inherent charm for the pond ...

All is vanity, saith the preacher (and Troy), but Troy also mentions cable television pundits and a shift to the right. 

Could he actually be slagging off Sky after dark, and the ranting wretches that turn up in the lizard Oz to do double duty, such as the dog botherer and petulant Peta?

He is ... he is ...

But if this state of affairs is all the fault of the cable news guys, and petulant Peta, and Troy prefers a step to the left rather than a jump to the right, what does that say about the lizard Oz?

Hasn't it routinely urged hard right ratbaggery?

The pond keeps looking for answers in cartoons, but ancient Troy seems to have entirely forgotten the reptile legacy ...

Hang on, hang on. The lizard Oz loves its wealthy retirees, is completely opposed to the voice, remains the home of climate science denialism, and routinely joins in bashing trans and gay people. 

Why only last night in Media Watch the pond witnessed Sky after dark hopping into bed with boofhead and thug Mark Latham, and yesterday Major Mitchell was on trans people bashing duty...

What is ancient Troy saying? That scribbling for the lizard Oz is entirely pointless, even existentially meaningless?

That reminded the pond of a hopeful analysis in Crikey by David Hardaker ...

News Corp keeps talking, but fewer and fewer are listening

With its business model failing and its culture-war shots increasingly missing their mark, is News Corp's political power waning?

Sorry, it's a long header and lede for something behind a paywall, but here's a sampling, because anything to do with herpetological studies deserves an airing ...

...News Corp once spoke out for the mainstream — or close enough to it to shift votes and win elections. As recently as 2007, it could pivot quickly enough to get behind a Labor government that seemed set to win anyway.

Now, it has to deliver its aging, rusted-on, conservative fringe the “news” they want to hear — or else. Just last week in the US, its audience dragged Fox back to Trump after a brief dalliance with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, rewarding the broadcaster by boosting viewers by 20%.

In Australia, it’s shaping responses to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament: News Corp’s commenters will drive the company into backing the No campaign. The company, in turn, will bully the Libs and the Nats to follow along behind.

COVID hurried the News Corp vanishing, as the company closed most of its regional and community papers while its big-city tabloids disappeared from street newsstands and local cafes. Now if you want the outrage, you have to go looking for it.

Over the past month, News Corp Australia’s boss Michael Miller has been out and about, trying to talk up the company’s power, bragging about subscription numbers above a million. Sure, that’s a nice little business. But they’re not numbers that can sustain the political clout News Corp once enjoyed.

That’s 1 million subscriptions, not subscribers. According to News Corp’s most recent quarterly report to its US regulator, 924,000 of those are for its news mastheads, with the other 100,000-odd being for the company’s various legacy magazines.

And according to its more detailed annual 10-K report last August, about a third of its news subscriptions are for The Australian and about two-thirds for its diminished city tabloids like the Herald Sun. Figuring in overlap and institutional subscribers leaves about 4000 News Corp subscribers in each of Australia’s 114,000-voter-strong federal electorates.

Oh it's a cheery analysis, and the pond was suitably cheered, only for a chill to come on to proceedings when the pond noted that Crikey had to turn off comments for the article ... no doubt because of the pending court case, with the Murdochian scorpions still with a potent sting in the tail ...

And so to a final gobbet from ancient Troy, apparently entirely oblivious as to the nature of the publication that he's scribbling for ...

If Troy has assigned all these tasks to the mutton Dutton, what then for the reptiles at the lizard Oz? 

Must the rag undergo a wholesale reform, from the restructuring of its administration under that prize twit Michael Miller to finding new scribblers who might write something different than a bromancer or a dog botherer, and must the reptiles develop a modern mission statement for the rag, which might mean no longer endlessly yammering on about the voice, or the good things the mango Mussolini has done, or the joys of Brexit, or even accept climate science as a science rather than a religion ...

But there's no sign that this has been seriously contemplated or yet begun. 

Ancient Troy's choice is clear ... he can be the scribbler who launches a ferocious daily attack on his colleagues until they change their ways and learn new lines, or he can get back in line and preach loyalty to the mango Mussolini, Faux Noise, Sky after dark, trans bashing and the whole damn thing...

How will he be able to measure his success? Why, he'll just need to run a few tests to see if he can get the right results from the beaker ...