Hagiographic corner, with drool alert ... and eventually, as night follows Day, there's a deep groaning ...

 

The pond regrets to advise that while the bromancer was in a fitting far right possie in the lizard Oz's digital edition this day ...

... the pond has reluctantly decided to red card him, with the reason obvious enough ...

 

It's true that without the mutton Dutton's unprincipled and cynical behaviour, we'd have not fully appreciated the lingering depth of the racism and bigotry in the Murdoch press and Australia at large, but there's no need to give it any more exposure ... though the pond is pleased to note that the lesser member of the Kelly gang finally caught up with the Pezzullo news from the Nine rags, and noted the fuss around a man who notoriously knew how to brownnose upwards and bully downwards ...

But bro lovers shouldn't despair.

Luckily, Charlie Lewis put together an excellent survey for Crikey, ‘A privilege to work for one of the greatest Australians’: highlights from the Rupert Murdoch hagiography. (paywall)

The pond was immediately on alert. Some reptile loon still thought the Chairman was a dinkum dirty digger, when he's now been a dirty Yank for a long time - since way back on the 4th September 1985, though he'd picked up the NY Post even earlier, back in 1976.

The pond should have been alerted by a few comments at the bottom of the page ...

BSA Bob
I’ll read the story later, just had lunch.
But who’s this Australian they’re talking about? Murdoch’s not Australian.

Bob wasn't the only one worried about the need for a barf bag ...

Andrew Bonnell
Greg Sheridan wouldn’t know the meaning of the phrase “speak truth to power”. He has always fawned obsequiously over the powerful, especially if they are right-wing and American. Go back and read his outpourings and grovellings over the US neo-cons who invaded Iraq in 2003 and caused untold damage and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Some slow news day, it might be fun for Charlie to compile Sheridan’s ten most obsequious moments.

Well you'll have to be able to get behind the Crikey paywall for more, but Charlie did offer an impression of the full reptile horror ...

Over in the far right of the page, in his accustomed possie, sat the bromancer ...

The pond was beguiled by the notion of "Murdoch Transition", as if to a higher 'leet plane, almost spiritual, but so began the search for the source of Bob's horror.

Warning, there will be much drooling and lickspittle fawning and brown nosing before we get to the big reveal ...

Sheesh, that's laying it on thick. The pond can't imagine where the bro found the trowel to handle that amount of crap. More likely he needed a shovel ...

Here the reptiles offered a polished snap of the Chairman, and as usual the pond decided to get all the fawning snaps of the humble Chairman meeting humble people, because spending time with the political 'leets was never his thing ...

Around this point the pond looked for a little relief, and found The Shovel ... celebrating the Chairman on the matter of those 'leets ...

There's more at the link - the pond doesn't like to take too much from the site - but what a much needed break from the bro's drooling ...

Ah, a mingling of common folk, all intensely aware of how the Chairman hated 'leets. Perhaps a port and a good cigar and with a dash of immense sophistication, as only the bromancer can offer and appreciate ...

At this point, as the stomach began to heave and threatened a Technicolor yawn, the pond felt the need to slip in another Shovel ...

Again, more at the link, and now just a last drool from the bromancer, before his noble work today indulging in a bit of black bashing, as befits a Chairman Rupert minion ...

Thar it blew, right at the end, "one of the greatest Australians". 

When will someone tell the bro that he's been working for years for one of the worst Americans?

Meanwhile, over at Media Watch last night, the observation of reptile hagiography was in full cry ...

...the CEO of the liberal Media Matters for America went even further last week, claiming: 

Rupert Murdoch’s legacy is one of deceit, destruction, and death.

In Fox News Murdoch created a uniquely destructive force in American democracy and public life, one that ushered in an era of division where racist and post-truth politics thrive. - Media Matters, 21 September, 2023

But tell that to Andrew Bolt, who beamed into Sky News early in the morning to praise the boss’s brilliance:

ANDREW BOLT: … such a genius, it’s not just his love of ideas and his energy and endless curiosity, but he actually picked the segments of the market that people weren’t catering to in the media business, and that is conservative parts of the market … - NewsDay, Sky News, 22 September, 2023

Andrew Bolt is close to his new boss, Lachlan, and so is Sky News chief Paul Whittaker, who had the network line up some of Rupert’s biggest fans to tell us what they loved about him most.

HEDLEY THOMAS: Rupert Murdoch has employed so many thousands of journalists, breaking millions of stories over many years, speaking truth to power and giving opportunities to journalists such as myself ... 

PATRICK DELANY: … he is an extraordinary man with amazing energy, optimism, but also I think when he looks at someone he sees 10 years beyond, which is also a superpower he’s had

GRAHAM RICHARDSON: I can remember going to have lunch at his home in the hills outside LA and just to sit there and watch him eat lamb chops was quite an honour … - NewsDay, Sky News, 22 September, 2023

And the front page of The Weekend Australian joined the suck up with this  extraordinary headline to celebrate Rupert’s career:  

Enduring resolve to fight for freedom and the truth - The Weekend Australian, 23-24 September, 2023

Like spreading Trump’s Big Lie, which cost Fox News US$800 million in damages.  

And hacking phones, which cost News UK more than one billion pounds.

Having given up the vice long ago, the pond was astonished to see how haggard the Bolter looked. Dishing out bigotry, bile and hate on a daily basis certainly takes it out of you ...

Meanwhile, the ugly American's gift to the world of another truly ugly American has gone beyond the Big Lie into full fascist, as can be read in The Graudian, ‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC and at The New Republic, Trump Goes Full Deranged, Suggests Charging People He Doesn’t Like With Treason.

And with the clarion call of full fascism ringing in the ear, why not more hagiography, this time from Mark Day ... 

Day briefly bobbed up yesterday arvo ...

... but there was something of a dead cat stench about the revival, what with this hagiography a few days old, though it was overripe when it first appeared ...

Yep, it's another full suck of the hagiographic sauce bottle, complete no doubt with a celebration of the Chairman's transformation of MySpace into a wonder to behold ...

Naturally there was a pause for a hagiographic snap, a walk down ancient times to avoid showing the wrinkled prune who now turns up in snaps ...

All the pond could think was another Shovel load might be handy ...

More at the link, which might be tempting because the next gobbet was long, and might incline some to reach for that barf bag ...

Note the neat sidestep at what the truly ugly American has done to America ... he's just a cheerful buccaneer doing a Long John Silver impression, as hammy as Robert Newton in his prime ...

Then followed an optimistic snap of a seed that didn't fall too far from the tree ...

The pond was reminded of Walter Marsh's story in The Graudian, The Murdoch story is the endless pursuit of control, power and profit – Rupert’s resignation is unlikely to change that.

The pond regrets the headline was wrong - he hasn't resigned, he's levitated and transitioned in a mystical, spiritual style, into an emeritus, in a way that an L. Ron or a Mother Teresa might envy - but the thrust was true enough ...

For the past century, the story of the Murdochs in the media has been about that endless pursuit of control and power. Even as a self-titled Chairman Emeritus — whatever that means — Rupert’s old habits may yet die hard.

Personally the pond can't wait for the Chairman to drop off the twig, and this blog can come to a fitting end, though there's always the temptation to observe an internecine war between the siblings, Succession style ...

Day of course isn't interested in any of that. He's more interested in lying about the constant lying that's long been a feature rather than a bug in News Corp ...

Here, have a cartoon celebrating the best of America, buccaneer style ...

Well done ugly American, and that brings the hagiographical portion of proceedings to a temporary close. 

After all that barfing, the pond had thought of holding over Dame Groan, because the groaning about immigration is exceedingly familiar, but the pond realised impatient fans of the Groaner would be bitterly disappointed, so here she is, groaning away in her inimitable style...

Yep, when the bromancer finishes a hard day's work doing more black bashing, the Groaner is ready for an even harder go at migrant bashing, because there's nothing like fear mongering to stimulate the juices. 

It worked for little Johnny long ago, so why not another bout of hate and fear and talk of how we'll all be rooned by Xmas...

Meanwhile, on another planet, things are looking a little difficult for some, and might even prompt them to think about making a move ...

... so why not head to a country ripe for a drought?

Sorry, the pond didn't mean to distract from the Groaner's bashing of pesky, difficult furriners... waiter, a full gobbet of Dame Groan in full rhetorical flight, if you please ...

Speaking of poverty street, at this moment the reptiles slipped in a Getty snap without crediting it ... from back on 9th September ...

If the reptiles had kept it small, it would only have set them back $200, but if you skip the medium at $475, then that's a whole $650, but at least Lisa Maree Williams will be happy ...

Meanwhile, the pond has made it to the end of the groaning without a single comment about its contents, on the basis that the pond has gone on many a migrant bashing hunt with the Groaner before (axe handles more dinkum than baseball bats), and likely will go on many more before it's all over ... and what can be said, except we'll all be rooned, certainly by Xmas ... and remember, the best thing anyone can do is follow chairman Rupert's lead and migrate to America, and ruin the country as comprehensively as you can, complaining in the process about the dire consequences of migration ... but if you must stay here, whine and bitch and moan endlessly, with Dame Groan a most excellent role model ...

As if the mutton Dutton needed any incentive to adopt migrant bashing and add it to his portfolio of black and woke bashing ...

And so to return to where the pond started, with the help of the immortal Rowe, celebrating the work and deeds of a mutton Dutton fellow traveller ...

And while wondering why the Labor government kept him on when anybody who'd worked in the public serve knew his form, here's a Wilcox to add to the celebration ...