The Oz has developed a new wheeze in its ongoing exploring of whiny victimhood — graphing the number of words spoken by panelists on the ABC show Q & A to show that surprise surprise the Tories do badly out of it. Hardly a shock when a government minister is usually on the show, and thus has to field questions about the actual exercise of power — and also when so many conservatives simply can’t muster the energy these days.
The words ratio they should really be looking at is on Insiders where Bolt the Comic Dog (he’s never on the sofa, always on the chair at the end. Why? Because he’s not allowed on the sofa. They should get him a basket and a chew toy) regularly talks over and talks down the other panelists, particularly women, with only Annabelle Crabb, the Fairfax Medusa, able to pacify him somewhat. Though his blustering reveals his desperation and is welcome for that, it’s high time someone told him to be a good dog.
Maybe it’s the SuperNanny naughty chair for Andrew and Piers?
They must have done that survey before ‘Windy’ Brandis took up 85% of the airtime last week…
Being a bully seems to be a necessary if not sufficient condition for membership of the Murdoch commentariat. It’s not the opinions that bother me- I agree with Bolt quite often- it’s the personality. They demand instant ideological compliance. If you don’t capitulate, you’re condemned as a Leftie or a wet liberal etc. You’ll be shouted down or talked over (a la Bolt). One casualty of this is lack of originality. Having ideologically straight-jacketed themselves and everyone else, they can only rock to and fro as if they were in some mud-brick madrassa. Tedious manichean rhetoric. So similar to their Green and Left opponents, who however don’t have paid platforms to kick the shit out of their enemies.
You wanna see a whole pigsty full of noisy macho thugs? Check out Fox News.
This may sound like bleating from the namby-pamby middle-ground, a plea for decorousness and restraint. Nope. It’s just that heads should be kicked over specific policies and actions, not general and alleged ideology. Take Gerald Henderson, last surviving specimen of Hendocerous, a tiny thin-skinned reptile. He’s a whiner not a bully, but spends most of his time trying to smear his opponents as leftists, rather than dealing with arguments on their merits. I’m bored shitless by this endless costume drama. The 1960s are, umm, over.