I have a challenge for all of you this afternoon, it’s kind of a word game. I’d like you all to try to identify the “hateful rhetoric”* in the following paragraph:

As a climate champion, you know what we’re up against. Ultra-rightwing politicians, millionaire radio shock-jocks and corporate polluter lobbyists are trying to engineer a dangerous lie – that Australians are mobilised against climate action.

Bonus points if you can figure out which bit is “the language of hatred and fear” or where it says that “No one, according to GetUp, can have an alternative view on man-made warming without being corrupt or a neo-Nazi.”

This is a serious challenge, because according to the Herald Sun’s resident linguistics expert, Andrew Bolt, “If GetUp keeps up this hateful rhetoric, someone might get hurt”.

Now I’ve read the piece of text from Get-Up a few times, but I still can’t find any mention of Neo-Nazism, Corruption or hate speech that could lead to someone getting hurt. That said, perhaps conservative columnists at News do have better language skills than the rest of us? Miranda Devine certainly made the case for it today when she pointed out:

ONE local side effect of Japan’s current troubles is the constant mispronunciation of the word “nuclear”.

No wonder the Telegraph considers Devine a “Hard Hitting Journalist”

*For those of you having trouble identifying the “hateful rhetoric”, I offer as a counterpoint some of the types of comments that Andrew has previously deemed appropriate on his blog. These are obviously not “hateful”

Al Gore – Proven liar.

Andrew McGahan – Unhinged propagandist.

Gough Whitlam – Underhanded. There’s not a single fibre of virtue or principle in that fellow.

Kevin Rudd – Paranoid

Al Gore – Hypocrite

Gordon Brown – Dishonest

Nathan Rees – Hysterical

Anthony Albanese – Petty and mean

Kevin Rudd – Liar

Jill Singer – Deals in smears

Professor Stephen Schneider – Evasive

Kevin Rudd – Fakery

Jerry Melillo – Deluded

Kevin Rudd – Coward

Brumby and Rudd attending disaster sites after Black Saturday – only there for a sicko photo op