Dir Abramovich, Jewish humor, Jewish comedy, and give me some more of the deeply offensive laughter ...

(Above: Mel Brooks didn't just give the world Get Smart! Talk about bad taste).

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the forum (book Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, music and lyrics Stephen Sondheim).

I read Dir Abramovich's This Family Guy isn't funny, just offensive, and I knew it was wrong, and deeply offensive in a funny kind of way, but I didn't know how to respond.

First a confession. I have a taste for what - for want of a better word - might be dubbed American Jewish humor. Bring on Seinfeld, love it. Bring on Curb Your Enthusiasm, love it, a half hour of cringing, but I love it (did I mention I live with Larry David, only without the Seinfeld royalties, and the mansion?)

Do you remember the season four episode The Survivor? Larry and Cheryl plan a tenth anniversary vow renewal, and as a result of a misunderstanding, the Rabbi conducting the ceremony brings a Survivor from the TV series to a social occasion, while Larry's father brings a Holocaust Survivor, leading to an argument over who's the better Survivor.

It's cringe inducing in spades, and it toys with one of the worst events in human history, at least up there with god bringing on the flood, wiping out humanity, and leaving Noah in the boat with a lot of two by twos.

But it's funny. Go figure.

And don't get me started on The Producers, which is my favorite movie about musicals, and which celebrates in the most perverse way, Hitler in spring time.

But then I grew up reading Philip Roth, so what would I know.

Anyhoo, I was thinking about scribbling about what a stick in the mud Dvir Abramovich sounds like, and how silly his commentary was, and how deeply unknowing about humor he is, and what a joy it is to see the deep rich strand of Jewish humor that's constantly mined in the United States for all to enjoy. Subversive, edgy, clever and funny, and give and take, and cut and thrust and payback, and if you're not as sharp as a cut-throat razor, you'll get cut.

Oh yes, Lenny Bruce started off with the name Leonard Alfred Schneider in New York:

"To me, if you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish", he once said. " It doesn't matter even if you're Catholic; if you live in New York you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be goyish if you're Jewish."

Which reminds me of another Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, where Larry David discovers he's been adopted, and flies out to visit his newly discovered parents, who turn out to be ardent Christians from the mid-west (series five, episode ten, The End, in case you go looking). David has fun with both Christian and Jewish stereotypes, and manages to walk the tight rope of offensiveness as he indulges in church, fishing and having a few beers.

But enough already. Back in those days, Mike Nichols, Mort Sahl, Elaine May and a host of others were Jewish. And they were funny, but none funnier than the deeply obscene (for those days) Lenny Bruce.

But I digress. Because I don't have to write a whit or jot about killjoy Dvir Abramovich. It's all been done for me, by Alex Fein, in The Holocaust is no exemption from satire.

What a clever, sensible young thing. So all I have to do is provide you with a link. Oh and a quote to go on with:

We need to be suspicious of anyone who sets parameters for what can laughed at. Abramovich intimates that because of Jews' past suffering, they should be exempt from the satire that every other ethnic group experiences.

When his arguments are reduced to their essence – that the uniqueness of the Holocaust makes the Jewish position in popular culture untouchable – they transform the Holocaust into a religious phenomenon. Consequently, all cultural product pertaining to Jews that is not sanctioned by his worldview is deemed heretical.

Unfortunately, Abramovich does not realise that the profane exists to be laughed at.

Oh, and a few one liners from Lenny Bruce, even if the man can only be really enjoyed doing a rap live:

The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them.
Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
If you can take the hot lead enema, then you can cast the first stone.
I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I'm going to be if I grow up.
Miami Beach is where neon goes to die.
Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.
The "what should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only "what is".
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha - ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.
The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.
The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.

Now for a little Larry David, and Australian snakes, and cringe time. And away with Dir Abramovich and his silly willingness to take offence when he seems deeply reluctant to take the gate.

If it's funny, it flies, and if it isn't funny, it sinks like a stone. So it goes, and so it should be ...

Miranda Devine, Tony Abbott, and the sweet apple of wonderful conservative social and sexual Catholic values ...

(Above: eek, it's the sisterhood at work again. And what's in the box, young possums? Tony Abott's heart!! Beware the sisterhood and the boojum).

In the revising of history and putting the best gloss on things, it's important to have a woman as the wicked witch.

After all, where would Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Tony, Andrew, Wilson, Bronwyn, Barnaby, Nick and Eric) be without the wicked witch?

So it goes with the rehabilitation effort of Miranda the Devine in Abbott's real trouble is the sisterhood.

But instead of a woman as the wicked witch, heck it's the whole damn sisterhood. Yep, as usual, it's the women who are to blame, this time a sinister sisterhood clucking in the media like addle-headed chooks. All excepting Miranda the Devine of course.

Hence the header to her column. No header of a sisterhood kind, such as Abbott's real trouble is Abbott and his dumb adherence to the more arcane stupidities of the heresy of Pellism and fuckwitted backward thinking Catholicism.

Nope, it's the sisterhood:

The fact is, Abbott's so-called woman trouble is with a particular subset of female - the aggressively secular, paleo-feminist, emasculating Australian broad, for whom unabashed red-blooded blokeishness is an affront of biblical proportions.

They are unrepresentative of women, and disproportionately influential, because they either work in the media or politics or have high-profile, heavily networked careers which mean they are quoted in the media, and their opinions sought after.

Yep, unrepresentative swill and disproportionately influential, unlike the Devine and her swill.

So it must have been this evil sisterhood which penned the lines in Abbott's gratuitously stupid and offensive book Battlelines. In it Abbott brought back the notion, dropped in 1975, of fault-based divorce, so that the blame game could once again reign supreme in the courts.

Now if you talk to younger possums who swim in the sea without reference to history, they have no idea of the implications of 'at fault' divorce, or the bizarre, arcane behavior it induced in couples wanting to split and to go their separate ways.

At the time he scribbled his nonsense, Abbott was roundly abused by many people, including that well known member of the sisterhood, Western Australia Labor premier Peter Dowding:

"The point about Tony Abbott's argument is that he wants to retreat to a blame game so you can actually blame someone in a divorce situation," Mr Dowding told ABC News Online.

"It's completely ludicrous to talk about making divorce harder at a time when people can separate easily. If you can separate easily, the question of making divorce harder or less hard is irrelevant.

"It's like Alice in Wonderland. It's like stepping through a looking glass into la-la land where Tony Abbott happily sits with his morality judging people while no-one's life gets harder or easier." ...

.... "I don't like people who are right-wing judgemental Catholics trying to bring their religious politics into Australian life," he said.

"We're not a bunch of Americans. We don't go round with our politicians pretending to be deeply religious and demanding that everyone else be while they go around committing adultery on the side, as they do in America.

"And we don't want to be in a position where people with right-wing and intolerant attitudes, like Tony Abbott, control what people believe.

"If people separate because they're unhappy with each other and live their lives apart, is he suggesting we want to go back to the 1960s and before when private investigators jump through windows and photograph people in bed?

"What's that going to achieve? Say you've been separated for five years from your wife or husband and you choose not to remarry and you have another relationship, you expect a private eye to come and [take a] photograph. I mean, how ludicrous is that?" (more here).

Abbott tried this desperate ploy because of another bogey in his life, gay marriage, and his seeking of a way to separate heterosexual marriage from the fearful new concept of homosexual marriage, by bringing back an 'opt in' traditional heterosexual matrimonial causes act.

It was such a stupid bit of dinosaur thinking that even the likes of Helen Coonan said she would need convincing. Guess that makes Coonan part of the evil sisterhood.

How does the Devine write this up?

On A Current Affair, Tracy Grimshaw gave him a hard time about contraception, abortion and making divorce harder to get.

Yep, it's all Tracy Grimshaw's fault for asking Tony Abbott about a dumb fuck idea he had that he wrote up all by himself. (Golly, it's good to have Abbott in the arena, we can say fuck and shit and poo and know it's just being manly).

But stay, wait a second. In this modern age, the Catholic church still disapproves of the use of condoms and other contraceptive devices and mechanisms. And Abbott is a devout Catholic of the Pellist heresy kind. WTF!

And if the Devine thinks she's doing Abbott a favor by reviving the abortion issue, she should take a deep breath.

First she presents him as being unobjectionable and never supporting any move to recriminalise abortion or stigmatise women. Next she drags in the "ostentatiously Anglican" Kevin Rudd, then she runs with the line of 100,000 abortions a year as being this generation's legacy of unutterable shame, and then she starts to peddle the line that really there might be a good case for a change in policy, since we currently live in a totalitarian state:

This led to protesters hurling themselves at him, wearing T-shirts with slogans such as ''Get your rosaries off my ovaries''. But he was echoing the feelings of many people, whose opinions have been suppressed as successfully as in any totalitarian state.

Polls have found Australian support of abortion on demand vacillating between about 53 and 61 per cent for 20 years, according to the 2007 Australian Election Study by Australian National University and Deakin University researchers.

Uh huh. Just as in the case of 'at fault divorce', talk to younger possums, and they have no memories of the old days, of coat hangers and evil substances, of backyard aunts, or furtive 'midwives', or of trips to Sydney to have a baby and foster it out, a social disappearing and shunning which led to profound sadness (as in the case of an illegitimate member of my family who was only ever spoken to or recognised by my mother, and who lived a life of deep rejection and sadness).

I always recommend a viewing of Vera Drake, by Mike Leigh, to see the consequences of Christian/Catholic social policy in action. Most young possums reel away, incapable of comprehending the story or the fate of Vera. Pray to the lord that we never return to that kind of deeply offensive nonsense. But if you're Miranda the Devine, drill down deep, and you might find there are grounds for a debate:

But drill down and attitudes are more nuanced. A 2006 poll commissioned by the Australian Federation of Right to Life Associations found, similarly, that 60 per cent of Australians support abortion on demand. But it found just 39 per cent support abortion for financial or social (non-medical) reasons; just 20 per cent agree with partial birth abortion; 54 per cent believe abortion involves the taking of a human life; and 57 per cent believe a 20-week old foetus is a person with human rights.

And, reflecting the change Abbott introduced as health minister, to fund a pregnancy support national phone counselling service, 95 per cent of those polled agreed women should receive free independent counselling before abortion.

The extremist viewpoint is not Abbott's but that of abortion fundamentalists posing as feminists who are his most strident critics.

Free independent counselling from a mad as march hare, baying at the moon Christian Catholic counsellor, just as welfare has been farmed out to the religious sector, and chaplains introduced in to schools to warn children of the madness masturbation can induce.

Well I'm sorry, but the extremist viewpoint is that of Abbott and the Catholic anti-abortion fundamentalists posing as humanitarians who are the most strident critics of women and their right to control their bodies. And as Abbott himself might say, with his vigorous manly language, they can get fucked, and so can the horses on which they rode in on.

But keep the debate on abortion going. The more Abbott gets tagged as a dinosaur and a lickspittle lackey in relation to women's issues, the more the likes of the Devine will help him sink into a morass of controversy, involving the old fashioned Pellist heresies and conservative Catholic values. It's bad enough having Chairman Rudd at the helm, just imagine the ghost of Pell manipulating the goose Abbott.

Oh and so on you go, women journalists across the country:

Women journalists across the country railed to each other that Abbott was ''the devil''. The female twitterverse was almost universally condemnatory. The former Cleo editor Mia Freedman's attitude was typical: ''Oh, Tony Abbott also anti-IVF,'' she tweeted. ''Seems like his Speedos are the least reprehensible of his crimes against women.''

The ex-Dolly editor Marina Go tweeted: ''I would rather eat my first born than vote for Abbott … what concerns me most [is] his anti-free choice views … [Tweetfems are] outraged that a man with Abbott's beliefs could possibly head up a major political party in Australia in 2009.''

The Devine desperately and comically tries to scrub the numbers clean. After all, Abbott has three daughters, a wife, two sisters, and surprise of surprises, a mother (who knows, perhaps she thought he came about as the result of a virgin birth via a camel). So surely there's no problem with his 'blokeish, confrontational style'.

... as Abbott pointed out to Grimshaw, polls shows his women problem is a myth. ''The last poll showed me somewhat more popular among women than men,'' he said. ''People will make judgments based on what they see now, not some caricature they heard some years ago.''

A Newspoll taken last week shows, while Abbott's overall popularity is low compared with Joe Hockey, there is no significant gender gap: Abbott had a 19 per cent following among women, and 18 per cent among men.

Yep, never mind that the 'at fault' caricature was just six months ago, they done went and appointed the third and least popular politician to head the Liberal party. Never mind that, women just love Abbott:

... when it came down to a choice between Abbott and his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, whose appeal to women went unquestioned, guess who was the clear front runner, especially among young females? Abbott was more popular with women at 41 per cent, compared to Turnbull's 39 per cent. For women aged 18 to 34, Abbott picked up 43 per cent, compared to Turnbull's 35 per cent.

One female Coalition MP, an Abbott fan, said yesterday that support for him in the party room this week was ''gender neutral''. ''Tony's the quintessential Australian bloke … but he's matured a lot. In the end people will judge Tony for his ideas as a conviction politician.''

Matured a lot? In the area of conservative social Catholic values? Younger women have no idea what Abbott is talking about when he tries on ideas like 'at fault divorce', and bashes gay marriage, and opposes stem-cell research, and would love to corral women's bodies and limit abortion.

What to make of the way he reflexively adopts conservative Catholic values on almost any social or sexual issue? Well he's got a big makeover to make, and he's got a problem with women, and not just the sisterhood, whatever that paranoid perception of women en masse might be.

And when Abbott's got the wholehearted backing of the likes of Miranda the Devine, he's got an even bigger problem. (Why even CityKat, deep in the heart of the deep north, is worried - sex and love under Tony Abbott? Forget about it.)

For a start, Abbott's a keen cyclist, and we know what she thinks about them ...

(Below: go on sweet young things. Eat the apple. Uncle Tony has carefully plucked it from the tallest, ripest, most remote branch of certified conservative Catholic values, and guarantees it will turn you into the sweetest, most devoted Stepford wife of all, and he's the fairest in all of Liberal land. Eat of the apple, my child, and all will be well, because Miranda the Devine says so, and you can trust Miranda the Devine ... unless you ride bicycles).

Gerard Henderson, prattling Polonius strikes again, and how to smuggle the budgies for the benefit of French dressing ...

(Above: advice to Tony Abbott from Polonius:

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station.)

In an exceptionally long and dull exercise in stating the bleeding obvious, our prattling Polonius has contributed a missive on the current leadership fracas, its resolution, and the ascending of Tony Abbott to the throne.

But because we're running a book on Gerard Henderson's scribbles, and as a journal of loon record, it's only appropriate to note the results on view in Lodge is as long way off, but new man will shore up base.

First mention of John Howard in column: 1st par.

Number of mentions of John Howard in column: 4

Only a fair average performance, but the stayers will do well if they stayed in the short odds ring.

As for the rest, on the one hand, I'm inclined to do a gloss of Henderson's scribbles, and on the other hand, I'm disinclined. On the one hand, I cherish his long digressions into Australian political history to make a point as obscure as an alchemist spinning gold from lead. On the other hand, I tend to get bored silly. Or as Tony Abbott might say. Shitless.

On the one hand, I would like to continue chattering about Tony Abbott from the viewpoint of an inner urban elitist, and on the other hand, I really can't be fagged chattering about an elitist executive director of the Sydney Institute chattering about Tony Abbott, especially as he sounds more like a desiccated coconut rather than someone who's benefited from a few chardonnays.

So here's Henderson's conclusion:

Abbott is not likely to be prime minister any time soon. But he has a chance of stabilising the Coalition by shoring up its base. This would be a reasonable start for an almost accidental leader.

Right, cleared that one up. After that, I've decided unilaterally to hand this piece to the real Polonius:

Yet here, Tony! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There, my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar (or shitty).
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel (especially Nick Minchin);
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Or of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

Second thoughts, instead of the prattling Polonius's, why not drop in on Peter Costello - the man without the guts to run for the leadership - trashing Malcolm Turnbull. A mad era best forgotten - along with Hewson and Latham.

No he's not talking about John Howard and his own time as the smug smirking smarmy fundie loving Cheshire cat of Treasury.

Now the Turnbull experiment is over. It is not surprising that it came to this. Tony Abbott has his opportunity. He has everything before him. The party must lock in behind him and move on. And to do that, the past year is best buried and forgotten along with the madness of the Hewson and the Latham eras.

As for the rest, the prattling Costello sounds remarkably like a prattling Henderson, and thereby sounds a lot like a prattling Polonius. Shore up the base, comes the cry, stand solid with Wilson Tuckey and Bronwyn Bishop and George Pell comes the cry.

But how to do it? My kingdom for a policy.

Oh well how about a bonus Monty Python sketch to help Abbott in the art of argument?

What do you mean, I can't wear budgie smugglers? Well you shouldn't. Well I can. No you can't. Yes I can. Who cares what the French think? You should. Especially if you want to attract Miranda the Devine. What if I don't? Well you should. No I shouldn't. I can and I will wear budgie smugglers. No you can't. Yes I can ...

... And who said you had a mandate on climate change? Well we did. No you didn't. The public did. No they didn't. Yes they did. Well if they did, it was only until I said they didn't, and so now you don't. Yes we do. Yes we did. No, you don't, no, you haven't. Yes we can. No you can't ...

And so on and so forth at a higher level of screeching until one or the other retires to a darkened room with a bex and a hot cup of tea:

Janet Albrechtsen, Tony Abbott, and the commentariat are the ones to blame ...

(Above: the Queen in Trinidad and Tobago. Oh dear, so kind of her).

Pray, be upstanding and be silent for a message from the Queen. Yes, that includes you, Tony Abbott:

... on this, the eve of the UN Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change, the Commonwealth has an opportunity to lead once more. The threat to our environment is not a new concern. But it is now a global challenge which will continue to affect the security and stability of millions for years to come. Many of those affected are among the most vulnerable, and many of the people least well able to withstand the adverse effects of Climate Change live in the Commonwealth.

Please be seated, and go about your normal business. And god save the Queen.

What I most love about the current debate, involving climate change, and revolving around Tony Abbott replacing Malcolm Turnbull, is the newly considered tone of the commentariat columnists doing their duty by god, the Liberal party, the Queen, the country, and the unwashed masses.

Only a day old in the new reign - the king is dead, long live the king - and here's Janet Albrechtsen in Turnbull tolls own death knell:

There are plenty of people who understand that Australia will have to be part of a global agreement on climate change.

But is Albrechtsen amongst those people, or is she a believer that the Copenhagen talks are the start of a world government, an international leftist conspiracy worthy of Nick Minchin? Here she is in October on team Monckton with Beware the UN's Copenhagen plot:

Emails started arriving telling me about a speech given by Christopher Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, at Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14. Monckton talked about something that no one has talked about in the lead-up to Copenhagen: the text of the draft Copenhagen treaty.

Even after Monckton’s speech, most of the media has duly ignored the substance of what he said. You don’t need me to find his St Paul address on YouTube. Interviewed on Monday morning by Alan Jones on Sydney radio station 2GB, Monckton warned that the aim of the Copenhagen draft treaty was to set up a transnational government on a scale the world has never before seen. Listening to the interview, my teenage daughters asked me whether this was true.

Of course it is dear:

So I read the draft treaty. The word government appears on page 18. Monckton says: “This is the first time I’ve ever seen any transnational treaty referring to a new body to be set up under that treaty as a government. But it’s the powers that are going to be given to this entirely unelected government that are so frightening.”

Would you be part of a global climate change agreement if you considered it the hoax of the century? Or the start of a frightening world government?

Here's Albrechtsen in November with Seeing through hoax of the century, doing the usual thing of pretending she's a scientist by quoting the works of sceptics and reviving memories of the Y2K event, as if somehow that was relevant (why not quote the Piltdown hoax, if we're dealing with hoaxes?):

Deja vu? Preparing for the deluge of rising sea levels, we were treated to footage last week from parliamentary question time starring Julia Gillard and her gumboots. Appropriately she was followed on ABC1 by Bananas in Pyjamas. Could man-made climate change turn out to be the greatest hoax of the present century? Certainly, ordinary people are beginning to ask questions.

Like the Y2K 'hoax', natch.

But wait, in a style worthy of the obsessive fear mongering monomaniacal style of Tim Blair, there's more, as in The unreasoning fearmongers:

Those who predict the end of the world, those such as Al Gore who tell us sea levels will rise by six metres in by 2100, those such as Tim Flannery who say it’s now or never, telling us we have about 20 years to act on climate change or else place our future at risk of apocalyptic droughts, floods, war and famine. Here are the fear-mongers.

Because you see Ian Plimer is the cheese-maker, as Albrechtsen celebrated his arrival on the scene some time ago:

There may well be errors in Plimer’s book of 503 pages and 2311 footnotes but to cast his book aside as an unworthy contribution to this debate tells you something about the stifling consensus and what Plimer rightly calls the “demonisation of dissent” on this critical issue ...

Critics have been fast and furious in their reaction to Plimer’s book. Robert Manne said The Australian had made a “grave intellectual, political and moral” mistake by including Plimer in the climate change debate. Michael Ashley, a professor of astrophysics at the University of NSW, described Plimer’s arguments as “nonsense”, “flawed and illogical.” On ABC Lateline Business, journalist Ticky Fullerton suggested he was “a greenhouse heretic”. “Is this scepticism genuine or is it about economic self-interest?” she asked. Funny how journalists fail to ask such questions or employ such overblown language when they interview those who represent the climate change orthodoxy. (original column seems to have disappeared, perhaps Chairman Rupert's first step in quarantining and isolating his digital content, but discussed here).

Funny how Ian Plimer employs such overblown language when debating climate change:

In my book Telling lies for God, there was a section on debate tactics of the creationists. The parallels are uncanny. Just for my own peace of mind, can you please assure me that you are not a young Earth creationist? (here)

Never mind. Because Albrechtsen and the like, within and without the party, is the real problem Tony Abbott will have to deal with, not to mention is own inner duality, when it comes to constructing a dialogue on climate change.

The window for talk of delay until after Copenhagen, a talk feast curiously designed strictly to bolster Chairman Rudd's ego, is very short (only a loon in the very small pond known as the antipodes can scribble such gibberish, but hey, it's our own loon pond, and we're proud of it).

You see, Copenhagen will be over by December 18th, just in time for our war on Xmas.

And at that point, the Liberal party will have to come up with a policy, a policy it has failed to design over the years - well at least ever since it decided that the ETS it designed and took to the electorate in 2007, and then saw snaffled by the Labor party, was no longer a viable policy.

Tony Abbott and his team will have to move from the notion that climate change science is absolute crap, to having a new solution to climate change - in a few short months. Except and unless of course, maybe it's the hoax of the century, a left wing conspiracy, or the first step to world government. And except he doesn't have the first clue as to what a policy to address that perspective might be. How can a schizophrenic sort out his inner conflicting demons? How can you move from absolute crap to a sensible policy solution to an urgent issue?

Perhaps by wearing the kind of bells and ribbons we will tear off our Xmas tree and throw into the street as we try to prosecute our war on Xmas? Glad rags of a kind.

Or perhaps Santa Claus will climb down the chimney and deliver a climate change policy in accord with the Queen's address at CHOGM, urging a stand on climate change, (here), just the sort of challenge we'd expect a devout monarchist like Tony Abbott to take up in a trice (not to mention his love of the talking tampon, bonnie Prince Chuck)?

Well here's the dissembling Abbott:

According to Newspoll and Galaxy, most Australians, while concerned about climate change, are against rushing into an ETS before it's clear what the rest of world is doing after the Copenhagen conference.

The effect of climate change is important, but so is the effect of climate change policy. (here)

Well yes but that rhetorical stance is good for a month. After that you have to have a climate change policy. Will it be to do nothing, or to do a little, or will it involve proposing an impost?

Will it be pie in the sky by and by, because there's nothing to worry about in the hoax of the century, or will it offer a magic pudding, whereby Australia, the largest carbon emitter per capita on the planet, can keep going its merry way without doing a thing?

Albrechtsen spends as good deal of time blaming John Howard, Peter Costello, and Malcolm Turnbull himself for his decline and fall, in what she considers a "Shakespearean-like tragedy, thereby proving she doesn't have a clue about what a Shakespearean-like tragedy might be.

Truth to tell, Albrechtsen and the rest of the commentariat commentators who've happily jugged along with Monckton, Plimer and the like, now have created a profound dilemma for the Liberal party, which is neatly split down the middle between the Minchinites who think climate change is just a hoax and a vast left-wing conspiracy, and those who think there might be something to the science.

Coming up with a solution to that policy impasse was beyond Malcolm Turnbull.

Well good luck with that Tony Abbott, but as each of the sceptics, or lick spittle sceptic fellow travellers, trots up to offer their congratulations - be it Paul Sheehan, Janet Albrechtsen, or Tim Blair - Abbott now has a couple of months to devise a strategy which will embrace both sides of the climate change coin. Talk about a challenge worthy of a schizophrenic.

Yep, good luck with all of that ... you better get a policy son, you're gonna need a real good one ...

I got legs I can walk
All the way down the dirt track
I fell down
I got up
I turned around then
I walked back
I walked to the sea
I stood there, looked for a sign
It took time
But it came
I added up and took
What was mine

Better get a lawyer son
Better get a real good one
Don't drop the soap
Don't smoke no dope
Get yourself a lawyer son
Your gonna need a good one
To getcha outa this one

Miranda Devine, Tony Abbott, and the chattering classes blather away

(Above: the ordinary common or garden set of shacks where average 'at one with the masses' dudes go for an average education which helps them fit in with the masses).

One day in, and already the commentariat is busy beavering away, and who better to beaver at the soft, white-anted liberal woodwork than Miranda the Devine in her column, ETS may be for Rudd what Work Choices was for Howard.

The Devine of course speaks for all women:

As for Abbott's lack of female appeal, he's decisive, fit and virile, for starters, hardly a turn-off to women, although if we could make one request, it would be to pack away the budgie smugglers.

We make one request? Speak for yourself, you silly ditz. Enough with this manly man chatter, and talk of virility and the wild sowing of seeds, as if we're reading an Ayn Rand novel.

For starters, what about the ears? Can they be packed away, or perhaps nipped and tucked?

Never mind, he'd make any woman with a divine mindset a divine catch:

He's a rugby playing, boxing Rhodes Scholar every bit as credentialled as Turnbull, though without the obsession with money. He's active in his community - a surf lifesaver and a volunteer firefighter.

He doesn't care about money or Sydney real estate, and he trained to be a priest? Eek. But of course by now you should have realised that this is just idle chattering talk from the idle elite, beneath contempt, and to be expected of someone who grew up in the bush. How sad that I didn't grow up in the eastern suburbs, and therefore have a much better idea of how I'm not at one with the masses in the way the Devine is profoundly mass-like:

It is the lot of a successful conservative party to be unfashionable, because the more in tune it is with its base the less popular it is with the chattering classes, who define themselves by how they differ from the masses. But outflanking the social conservative Kevin Rudd from the left was never a viable option.

Now the Liberals are at one with Barnaby Joyce, mad uncle Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey, Bronwyn Bishop, George Pell and Miranda the Devine, so all is well with the world.

And if healing is the aim, Abbott has already mended the rift with the Nationals. The Coalition is back, with Barnaby Joyce embracing the leadership of his fellow St Ignatius College, Riverview, alumnus.

Ah yes, at one with the St Ignatius College, Riverview masses. What a splendid way to educate the masses. Why not enrol your child today for an education at one with the masses. $12 to $18k a year should see you and your child well done (here). Then you too can blather on at length about the chattering class, and how you're at one with the masses. (or alternatively you might learn how to discreetly jerk your chain in private - they do teach manners at Riverview, or so I'm reliably told).

Never mind, the more you hate them, the stronger they'll grow:

John Howard wore the Howard-haters like a badge of courage. The more they piled on the invective, the greater the public desire to give him a fair go. For Abbott, the more intemperate and irrational the Abbott-haters, the stronger he will become.

But what if you laugh at them? Never mind, that would establish you as one of those odd people who think Abbot is the mad monk incarnate:

The vitriol began the moment the party room yesterday endorsed Tony Abbott as Liberal leader. The women of the twitterverse, the ABC and Crikey.com agreed Abbott's election was a disaste. He's a right-wing Catholic extremist. He'll never get the women's vote. The people who voted for him were troglodytes.

Which is why of course the Devine had to be vitriolic about the vitriolic the moment they began to throw around the vitriol like holy water. Now everybody is in step:

Abbott learnt from Howard to never get too far ahead of the party room. He was the one in step with the zeitgeist. Turnbull and his supporters were fighting the last battle, in denial about the sea change in community sentiment on the Government's emissions trading scheme, just as Turnbull fought the wrong battle in the republican debate, unwilling to acknowledge the direct electionists' case.

Ah yes, in step with the Wilson Tuckey zeitgeist.

So now the mad monk is going to launch an immediate campaign in favour of the direct electionists' republican case, so we can avoid that aspirational tampon, and global warming extremist, bonnie Prince Chuck, becoming our monarch?

Dream on, the contradictions are so huge, even Walt Whitman couldn't solve or embrace or encompass them.

No, what's going to happen is a simple minded fear campaign about a huge tax, which worked terribly well at overturning John Howard and defeating the GST. Oh wait I must go buy something and pay my GST (never ever, read my lips?) Tony Abbott is going to battle climate change without an impost? How interesting ... do go on.

Better yet, why not take a completely irrational swipe at the return of interest rates to more typical post recession nee depression levels? (Abbott's first big lie: interest rates).

Abbott landed other blows at his first news conference, referring to the national broadband network mess, and linking Rudd's ''irresponsible spending spree'' to yesterday's interest rate rise. It's a charge that resonates, and which inexplicably Turnbull never managed to prosecute.

Perhaps because it's stupid, or does that sound too elitist? Come on down economics elitist Michael Pascoe:

Well that didn’t take long: a few minutes into his first news conference Tony Abbott made his first big lie as Liberal Party leader, only to be called on it less than three hours later by no less an authority than the Reserve Bank of Australia.

And in the process, Abbott signalled his intent to continue the opposition’s form of running wildly populist and irrational GFC commentary – the Daily Telegraph of political economics ....

... How delightful to be in a country where interest rates are being gradually edged back to only mildly stimulatory.

Never mind, the Devine sees victory for conservative Catholicism just around the corner, so we can have someone even madder than the Christian Chairman Rudd at the helm, with the Pellist heresy whispering in Abbott's ear:

If Rudd is rash enough to call a double dissolution, the Liberals at last have a platform and a leader who is a rational communicator. No jargon or doublespeak from Abbott. His clarity of thought and language will expose Rudd as the emperor with no clothes.

Clarity of thought in toeing the Pellist heresy line?

Well Abbott had better learn something about inclusion and reaching for the middle and the swinging voters quick stix, and he ain't going to get that by reading Miranda the Devine. Because if he thinks the Devine speaks for all women, he's even more deluded than she is ... and Julia Gillard will see to that.

Which is about the only thing that the Devine gets right. It'll be Gillard v Abbott, and let's see who's the last man standing.

Meantime, one last rite of passage for Malcolm, no longer in the middle, and expected to take no part in the war against Xmas:

Malcolm Turnbull's the name and I served on the Liberal train
'Til Nick Minchin's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the spring of '09, we were hungry, just barely alive
By December the 1st, Canberra had fell
It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Malcolm down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Malcolm down
And the people were singing
They went, "La, la, la"

Back with my wife in Woollahra, when one day she called to me
"Malcolm, quick, come see, there go the Joe B Hockey"
Now I don't mind stacking ballots, and I don't care if the money's no good
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

The night they drove old Malcolm down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Malcolm down
And all the people were singing
They went, "La, la, la"

Like Peter King before me, I worked the eastern suburbs land
And like Brendan above me, I took a rebel bikie alt indie stand
He was just fifty one, proud and brave, but a ballot laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can raise a squillionaire back up when he's in defeat

The night they drove old Malcolm down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Malcolm down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, na"

The night they drove old Malcolm down
And all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Malcolm down
And the people were singing

They went, "Na, na, na"

Tony Abbott, the mad monk ascendancy, and get your memorabilia and images while they last ...

Here at loon pond, we like to keep up with the curve, and so we're rushing out a special bonus celebratory line of gear as recognition of Tony Abbott's ascending the throne. Already you can get the Tee's above from Zazzle, and just look at this magnificent, handsome, elegant mug, a creme de la mug for mug users and mug drinkers and mug punters:

But why all the fuss? Well Tony Abbott is our perfect conservative politician, devious, shifty, furtive, cagey, clever and completely incapable of lying straight in bed. Surely that's worth celebrating?

One of our favourite-est moments came when the goodly Abbott was interviewed by Laurie Oakes on the Sunday program:

LO: ...can I remind you that a few days ago you visited a Victorian town of Beaufort. Let me read from the local newspaper. It says "In a wide ranging speech, Mr Abbott talked about climate change, the Liberal political fortunes and Kevin Rudd. Quote - the argument on climate change is absolute crap," he said.’ Is it absolute crap?

TA: But then I went on to say -

LO: Oh yes you went on to say and I'll quote the paper. You said, "However, the politics of this are tough for us. 80% of people believe climate change is a real and present danger." You think its crap but you're doing this to humour the voters?

TA: And what I was trying to do in that discussion, Laurie, was to talk around, if you like, a group of good, decent Liberals to support what I think is a reasonable compromise position. That's to say we will have an ETS but it will be an ETS that does the least possible damage to Australian jobs and Australian industries and the maximum possible protection against the possible risks of climate change.

LO: But we have a situation where Malcolm Turnbull's leading defender in this debate about an ETS thinks the climate change argument is crap?

TA: Don't forget the context here, Laurie. I am confronted by a hostile Liberal audience on this particular issue. I am trying to bring them around to support the position of the leader and the shadow cabinet. And I think I was reasonably successful on the night.

LO: But you haven't denied today that climate change arguments are crap?

TA: Laurie, what I've said to you is that I think that the science is far from settled ...

Magnificent, glorious stuff (and the rest of the interview here).

Over at the Sydney Morning Herald, that prime goose Paul Sheehan led off his piece about the new regent, Abbott laid out his plans for all to see, with this piece of pandering prose:

No-one has ever said Abbott lacked the courage of his convictions. And those convictions were laid out in 200 pages of political manifesto on July 28 this year.

On July 28, a beautiful blonde, Sarah Murdoch, standing in front a beautiful backdrop, Sydney Harbour, gave an eloquent and thoughtful launch of Tony Abbott's manifesto for power, his book Battlelines, while Lachlan Murdoch and Tony Abbott looked on appreciatively.

Well the goose knows how to stir the hornet's nest, so to speak, since courage in one's convictions shouldn't presumably blow to the four compass points in a month, or rush like Melbourne weather through four seasons in one day, and Jofek was the first hornet to respond:

He may not be a climate change denier but he's a disloyal opportunistic fruit-loop who's pandering to the climate change conspiracists. What's the point of your story anyway - you read his book and there were indications he might do this? Well done, certainly ground-breaking stuff!

It didn't get much better further down the comments chart, with tempers seemingly running a little short, but I digress, as this takes us away from our celebratory moment in the sun, wherein the mad monk's ascending to the throne can be praised by a heavenly host of worshipful Pellites, as their champion now prepares to smite the disbelievers constantly threatening the Sydney diocese.

But first a word of warning. Please beware of counterfeit product bearing the name of Abbott. There are false Abbotts to be found everywhere on the intertubes, with dire warnings as the kind of civilization we might get if we read too much Abbott:

But I guess you know that Australia can't be confused with Transylvania, and Nick Minchin in no way resembles Count Dracula, and the Liberal party's lurch to the right doesn't indicate any kind of vampire or zombie infestation (though we do have a plentiful supply of wooden stakes, garlic and silver bullets available for the nervous).

And we were also concerned, alarmed even, to discover when googling for images (bling away you Murdoch loving satanists) that there was a lack of humorous images of the mad monk on the intertubes.

Well here's one of our favourites - Abbott eyeing off the microphone, or John Howard, or whatever, with his tongue. Now you might think it hard to eye off something or somebody with your tongue, but you clearly aren't cut out to be a politician. You don't have the right stuff.

You might even lie straight in bed at night. Well we here at loon pond can develop a policy response which will fix that situation quick stix .... so you can lie as crooked as the rest of us.

And now on with the show ... Childish, adolescent, worse than a teenager on E?

Guilty, but really politics is now going to be such fun for a little while, like the good old days with Mark Latham, and hysteria everywhere, as the head kicker tries to change his spots and sound like a statesman.

Soul clap hands with glee at such a sight to see ...

Oh and that abused quote in the last line? It comes from Yeats' great poem Sailing to Byzantium:

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Tony Abbott, and a special moment of thanks unto the lord ...

Tremendous news.

As requested by this site, the mad monk Tony Abbott is now the leader of the opposition. By a vote! The good lord came down to the earth, as we requested, and moved amongst the Liberal party, and lo, they came unto a decision, and it was good, and the Pellist heresy was justified. Here endeth the lesson, but follow the angels and all will be well.

And better still, he has the full support of mad uncle Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey, and Kevin "the Undertaker" Andrews!

Happy days! And he's a groover, with a deep romantic appeal to women, who just swoon and bare their thighs in his presence:

Finally, the Liberal party has elected its Mark Latham.

Look on your new fearless leader, mortals, and bow down. By a single vote!

Oh it's better than a chook fight in a poultry farm.

Now let's all lift our voices to the heavens in thanks:

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days,
Thursday, Friday, Happy Days,
Saturday, what a day,
Rockin' all week with you.

This day is ours
Won't you be mine. (Oh Happy Days)
This day is ours (Oh Happy Days)
Oh please be mine.

Hello sunshine, goodbye rain,
He's wearing my Liberal party membership on his chain.
He's my steady, he's our man,
Me and the lord gonna love him all we can.
(Chorus)
Gonna cruise him round the town,
Show everybody what I've found
Rock'n'roll with all my friends
Hopin' the music never ends

Hopin' climate change debate never ends.

These Happy Days are yours and mine (oh Happy Days)
These Happy Days are yours and mine (oh Happy Days)
These Happy Days are yours and mine, Happy Days.

Tim Dick, the art of bicycle riding, the tedium of classical music, and end the hatred now ...

The wretched Tim Dick is at it again, but as we scoured through We need to be nice to cyclists ... and play nicely, we came across a vital clue.

Dick's ostensible subject is road safety for cyclists, but then the penny dropped:

So the fun old days of playing blindfold chicken with the 380 bus to Bondi while listening to AC/DC are over.

Akker Dakker! Mr. Dick is a bogan, and his preferred choice of music while playing blindfold chicken is of the head banging kind. Not Mozart, not Beethoven, but Akker Dakker!

Say no more! It explains so much, and in particular it explains his hatred of classical music, as expounded at dreary, mind blowing length in There's just no sound argument for being hooked on classics.

Let's remind ourselves of that whiff of hellfire brimstone and sulphur:

One of the few things classical music has in its favour is a dogmatic retention of the intermission: an escape hatch for those unable to sleep in concert hall seats. I wanted to but couldn't, so I left.

On and on he ranted, about ageing audiences, and funereal funeral music, and self-indulgent meanderings and tortured lows, and clapping conductors at the start, and the need to study music like academics, and the suffering of those in the grip of Stockholm syndrome, and well-educated class snobbery (what, no chardonnay sipping?), and a stuffy industry, and dreadfully dull concerts, and so on and so forth.

It was a hate-filled tirade, a dirge of loathing, and now best guess places the deadly Dick as an Akker Dakker fan.

Say no more. Unlike the Dick we won't revile Akker Dakker. We run a broad musical church. We have a soft spot for the lads, but insist in a purist sense that once the lead singer Bon Scott choked on his vomit (here), the real AC/DC came to an end.

Never mind, the rest of the Dick piece on cycling is reassuringly dull and stupefyingly banal, prompted by a NSW government pamphlet on bicycle safety, and a hint that the feral packs of lycra clad zombies and vampires terrorising hapless, innocent Sydney motorists be culled to a size of twenty. Even then, there's no certainty the fragile flowers in their Woollahra tractors will feel truly safe from these wildebeest cavorting on the roads as if they own them.

As is the usual way with MSM, there's no link to the actual pamphlet, but I did dig up this handbook for bicycle riders (in pdf form), and if you're interested in forensic activity, you can reference this Bicycle New South Wales Guidelines For Ride Leaders, prepared as long ago as March 2005, and you can reference the current story here and here.

Never mind, it's just more of the same from the Herald, after it discovered courtesy of Miranda the Devine, that cyclist bashing and cyclist stories is good for circulation. No need for them to do more than a head's up - there's more information about safe cycling on the full to overflowing intertubes than can be canvassed here - so that the likes of Dick can do yet another colour piece on the pecking order of cyclists on Sydney roads.

No it's the depths of the reprobate mind of Mr Dick we want to explore. Suddenly he's all peaches and cream and piety, and fearful of hate:

As cyclists, we hate drivers, pedestrians and all other cyclists. As pedestrians, we hate cyclists, drivers and all other pedestrians. As drivers, we hate cyclists, pedestrians and all other drivers – and taxis, trams, buses and trucks; and stopping for roadworks, traffic lights and give way signs; and dogs, old people and cars brandishing Jesus fish stickers.

We just hate generally ...

Yes, and as writers, it seems we hate classical music.

Well of course Dick tries to have a heel in both camps, and spends his column urging drivers to be considerate and play nice, and pedestrians to be considerate and play nice, and cyclists to be considerate and play nice. Why, it's as banal as Mozart's Ein Musikalischer Spaß K. 522, with all the familiarity of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

No mention of writers being considerate and playing nice about classical music! So enough already with the classical music metaphors.

Well of course on reading Dick I immediately became enraged. I hopped on my bike, and ran over a pedestrian, then walked back home, knocking over several ill-advised children who stepped into my path, before getting into my car, and knocking over a pack of ill-advised cyclists who got in my way as I went to pick up my damaged bicycle. While listening to Akker Dakker at such high volume I was certain to damage my hearing.

I blame the whole affair on Mr. Dick for revealing that he's a bogan, and I wasted my time getting indignant about a bogan's opinion of classical music.

Take it away Akker Dakker, in what arguably is the best early Ozrock music video created, as well as the definitive use of bagpipes for haggis lovers:

Gerard Henderson, John Howard (how did you guess), and Christmas comes early to the Liberal party and happy voyeurs ...

(Above: the grinch who killed the traditions of Xmas, or at least failed to hand them down in proper conservative style).

Up early, race to tree, sit down, smell of pine oozing from needles, tear at paper, start unwrapping, reach down to bottom of stocking to find chocolate Santa, shove popcorn in mouth ... oh bliss, oh poop, oh joy ...

Sudden bleary eyed recognition. Wrong day. Too early. But still joy. Today we get a new federal Liberal leader, to prod and poke and play with until broken.

And in the meantime, we get to read Gerard Henderson's regular Tuesday outpouring, Howard not the man to give advice on changing leaders, and what joy it is.

First to the betting ring:

First mention of John Howard in the column: header, and then first par.

Number of mentions of John Howard in the column: 14

By golly, what joy, it's a flood of Howards, the column so skewed with his blessed name that the compass is spinning wildly, excited by all the magnetic electrons, and not a punter in the land able to claim the prize, because of the many mentions of little John, starting right up there with first word in the header! As a result, the bookies head to Hawaii and the unclaimed prizemoney jackpots next week to unimaginable heights.

But soft, what's this? Oh no, the ultimate chaos, the undermining of everything we hold dear, the end of the universe as we know it, the pond emptied of meaning, as we confront an alien, hostile universe. Can existential despair and alienation follow so hard on the heels of joy?

Henderson's column contains its usual set of history lessons, but it also - gasp - criticises John Howard, and at length.

You see, it seems the current leadership crisis is all John Howard's fault, and the sight of all the lickspittle Liberals kowtowing to Howard as they seek the blessing of the Don like tragic middleweight Mafia mobsters is simply too awful, too hideous a sight, too much for Henderson to bear.

Is this the sweetest moment of all, to see the suffering writ so large on the page? Who needs Xmas when you can have a read of our very own prattling Polonius.

First to the charge sheet. It is alleged that while in charge of the Liberal party, John Howard did fail to act appropriately:

It is not clear why either Hockey or Turnbull or any other influential Liberals would seek advice on leadership issues from Howard. In fact, Howard is primarily responsible for the Liberal Party's present leadership problems. In October 2001, Howard told The Australian's Paul Kelly that he was critical of the way Labor failed to manage an orderly handover from Bob Hawke to Paul Keating in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Howard specifically praised the way in which the Liberal Party's founder, Robert Menzies, had handed over the prime ministership to Harold Holt in early 1966.

Shun him, spurn him, never mind that for what seems like years Henderson has regularly invoked Howard as the guru, and his time in power like the best years spent in Valhalla. He blew it, while in full possession of his faculties:

In other words, Howard well understood the need for a long-serving prime minister to pass on his or her office. It was Howard's unwillingness to arrange a leadership succession midway through his fourth term that has left the Liberals all but leaderless today. The former prime minister claims he had intended retiring sometime in 2006, but refrained from doing so lest he seemed to be responding to pressure from Costello and his supporters. In fact, Howard never made an unambiguous decision to leave the top job.

Hiss boo, John Howard. Never again will we mention your name, except with a flourish and curl of the lip, a downward sneer only alleviated by memories of grand Chaser moments as the lads pursued you on your power walks.

If Howard had handed over to Costello in March 2006 - on the 10th anniversary of the Coalition winning office - it is unclear what would have been the political outcome. Kim Beazley was Labor leader at the time and the ambitious Kevin Rudd was not popular with many of his colleagues. Who knows? Costello may have contested the 2007 election against Beazley, in which case the outcome would have been uncertain. Even if Costello had lost to Labor, led by Beazley or Rudd, as a still relatively young leader he would have been expected to stay around and lead the Liberals in the early years of opposition.

Oh yes, even in the bizarro science fiction world of 'what if', who knows how things might have played out, if only John Howard had never been inflicted on Australia. Everything might have been so different, and this Christmas so pleasant. Let us say it long and loud. John Howard was a disaster for the country:

Howard was one of Australia's most influential post-war prime ministers - along with Menzies, Hawke and Keating. But he should not be regarded as the ''go-to'' Liberal when counsel is being sought on leadership matters.

Oops, got a bit carried away. It seems really that it would have been best if Malcolm hadn't called him and jolly Joe Hockey hadn't been snapped leaving Howard's home and perhaps the lads shouldn't have courted the Don, who remains a political master, except in the minor matter of arranging his own burial.

Still it's as round and robust a denunciation as we can expect from our prattling Polonius. Perhaps more disturbing is the way this current fracas has led to the bagging of Liberal players, and the denigration of their skills, abilities and talents, something of course which Henderson himself would never do:

When Brendan Nelson defeated Turnbull in the ballot to succeed Howard, it was evident to many he was not up to the job. Nelson was a successful cabinet minister but he was never likely to succeed in the extremely difficult role of Opposition Leader. And Nelson's background as an ALP member and voter, before he joined the Liberals, confused Coalition supporters and swinging voters alike.

Oh no, not like that. Not shoving in the sword even after the player has left the stage. Even if he was a double dealing Labor stooge, riding a motorbike and piercing his ear so he could wear jewellery.

How about bagging a current player? Can do:

Late last year, it was evident Costello was still the best equipped to lead the Opposition - but he did not want the job. When Turnbull prevailed over Nelson in a party room ballot, it was an open question as to whether he could overcome his political inexperience. Turnbull only entered politics in late 2004 and before that he had no real roots in the Liberal Party.

Oops, that could sound a bit personal. No real roots. A Johnny come lately, or more properly, an unJohnny who can never belong to the one true narrow Church of Johnnies.

No real experience and now talking out of turn, outside the club doors, as if Turnbull was as mad as mad Doc Evatt when he berated the Catholics for ruining the Labor party, forgetting that B. A. 'Bob' Santamaria was such a kindly man.

Still, they did put Malcolm in the middle, better shift it to a policy-based trashing:

It was always in the Opposition's interest to delay a firm position on an emissions trading scheme until after the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Turnbull's lack of understanding of the Liberal Party - and its roots in small business - led him to seriously misread the situation.

Ah yes, the man who said that John Howard broke the heart of the nation ... what would he know about forelock tugging Liberal monarchist fervour, or belonging to a club that would never want him as a member? What would he know about small business roots? Not after he sold OzEmail for a fortune, and worked as a merchant banker. What would he know about business? When running the corner store in the fifties is what made this country great. That's what we want, a grocer in charge of the country, not a squillionaire.

Worse still, when it comes to the media, Turnbull's clearly a trollop, a harlot and a slut:

Turnbull's plight has been made worse by his decision to campaign for the votes of fewer than a hundred Liberal MPs in the media. Last Friday, the Opposition Leader cancelled a Liberal Party fund-raising commitment in order to appear on the 7.30 Report. He used the occasion to criticise Senator Nick Minchin and his supporters. This was in spite of the fact that some 42 per cent of Liberal MPs had voted for a leadership spill the previous Wednesday when Kevin Andrews initiated a leadership challenge.

Oh no, he criticised the saintly Nick Minchin? Why that's roughly equivalent to bagging Mother Theresa, as that dreadful atheist chappie Christopher Hitchens is inclined to do when in the grip of alcohol of some low grade gin kind:

Then on the Sunday program, Turnbull comprehensibly bagged Minchin and Abbott while making potentially damaging statements about Joe Hockey, which could be used by Labor against the Coalition in the future. It is as if Turnbull does not realise that a leader has to be able to manage all his colleagues, or as many as possible. It is unlikely Rudd would have been as critical of Minchin and Abbott as Turnbull was on Sunday.

The saintly Nick Minchin and the butter wouldn't melt in his mouth mad monk? Oh say it ain't so Malcolm, not even Kevin Rudd would be so cruel or unkind.

Not even Chairman Rudd? Well let's see how that rat behaves when cornered, because Chairman Rudd's circumstances are vaguely different, since Turnbull's future political career would seem odds on to consist of either glowering from the back bench, or forming a new liberal democrat party of one, or tending his squillions in the style of Uncle Scrooge.

Never mind. It's the shedding of tears and the gloomy prognostication about the future which is perhaps the most moving part of Henderson's column:

Whatever the Liberal Party decides on the leadership, victory in 2010 seems most unlikely.

There is a plausible case for leadership change. But there is scant reason to dump the West Australian Julie Bishop for Queenslander Peter Dutton, who is on record as regarding his seat as unwinnable. There is enough Liberal leadership instability already without going down this track.

And it's all the fault of John Howard. Now repeat after me children, in a solemn unctuous smug righteous tone: it's all the fault of John Howard, it's all the fault of John Howard. Repeat, until you feel much much better.

He ain't the Don, he ain't even a decent consigliere, he's just a naughty bad planner and whisperer of bad unwanted advice ... because Gerard Henderson tells me so.

Cancel Xmas, it's already here ...

(Below: Malcolm Turnbull's life after politics?)