Piers Akerman, Kevin Rudd, Marcus Einfeld (again), irrational ranting and tofu sandwiches

(Above: a tofu sandwich)

Whenever you read Piers Akerman these days, it seems you can expect a typo or two - For Rudd, sorry seemsto be the easiest word is a typical mangled header - and some profound insights.

How's this for revelatory?

He (Kevin Rudd) is legally an adult and he is legally our prime minister.

No, no, fat owl, say it isn't so. I thought he was illegally an adult, and illegally our prime minister. Thank the lord you corrected my ignorance and helped me understand complex legal issues.

Sadly there's not much else in his Sunday Terror column that's as profound. There's plenty of Kevin Rudd bashing, using the clever device of paralleling disgraced judge Marcus Einfeld with the disgraceful behavior of the PM.

There's nothing sensible about this - you can't really hang Rudd with Einfeld's rope, or vice versa for that matter - but plenty that's cheap and easy, and anyway you never expect logic from the fat owl. You expect rants, and he delivers quite a nice one. Let's give him nine out of ten for sustained personal abuse, one out of ten for actual policy insights, and three out of ten for recycling the meat-less sandwich Rudd blow-up story yet again. 

But the meat-less sandwich story is pretty thinly sliced by now, and what we need, what we demand, is an abundance of rich, juicy adjectives, metaphors, and mouthings off. So here we go:

Einfeld: disgraced and jailed, collapsed the market in living national treasures, serial offender, self-anointed highly principled, record padder with worthless diplomas from mail-order universities.

But that's just a warm up for PM Rudd, a pony of beer before hitting the sour scotch.

Rudd: boorish, immature bully, tear inducer, thin lipped, worthless sorry apology to so-called stolen generations, serial offender, apologies are cheap, from whom apologies flow like flooding rivers, poor memory, millionaire businesswoman wife, St Kevin, spin doctors, turnover in staff, immature and petulant, wrongdoing, weak and ill-equipped to deal with reality, behavioural immaturity, flawed character, story concocter, gormless television appearances, one-dimensional personality, low level diplomatic career, blip in the private sector, solemn Christian, old fashioned socialist, irrational rants, fabricator of mythical past, mean and nasty stuff in past, not a true achiever, lacks graciousness and humility, latest begrudging policy, recalcitrant Rudd's meagre soul.

But what does such a litany, such a recitation, such a spewing of bile and hatred, say about the fat owl's own soul? 

Watching the conduct of true achievers, it is apparent that they treat all people as humans, not some as their equals and the rest as servants. Manners do maketh the man and the woman.

Oops. I think Piers is confessing that as he himself lacks manners, he cannot maketh the honorary title of man. And since he can't seem to treat all people as humans, as opposed to demonoids, he seems incapable of the conduct of true achievers.

Graciousness and humility are bywords in the ranks of the truly great and the truly good, if not among those pre-selected by the ALP.

Yep, by definition, if you're pre-selected by the ALP, you can't stand in the same room as that bigoted Bill Heffernan, that gas bag mad monk Tony Abbott, or that wonderful fundie lover and party destabilizer Peter Costello.

Graciousness and humility? The fat owl might know how to type them, he might even know what they're supposed to mean (though I suspect he'd need a dictionary to elucidate the finer details of their meaning), but he's as far away from them, or perhaps even further away, than Kevin Rudd.

Think about it. For mean spirited, rancorous, demeaning, abusive trumpery, Piers Akerman aka the fat owl is to all intents and purposes Kevin Rudd, except he's not the PM, he's just a hack tabloid journalist.

Now I understand what he's on about.

He (Akerman) is legally an adult and he is legally a journalist.

But don't expect that to amount to a hill of beans, so much as a hill of abuse, and do expect the information to be about as much use in understanding this funny old world as a burr in the foot, an ingrown toenail, an excess of sunburn, a blister on the heel, or an abundance of irrational rants.

It takes a strange level of excess to make Rudd feel vaguely human, but the fat owl manages the deed by giving him an almost satanic level of deformity. I suppose some people might read Akerman and nod their heads in approval at his sage wisdom, but I'm afraid he just makes me laugh and chortle out loud. 

You mean those cackle headed, addle brained Australians voted this dunderhead into office because they so hated the Howard government? What's that say about Piers' hero, John Howard? Second thoughts don't ask, in case he answers. One irrational rant is enough for a quiet Sunday ...

As usual, I went back to Shakespeare for help and enlightenment, and sure enough the bard had already covered the plot in his story of a dastardly hunch back making it to power by getting a rich wife, but failing at the last minute because he lacks one vital ingredient. Now read on:

Kevin Rudd
A tofu sandwich! my kingdom for a tofu sandwich!

RAAF Stewardess
Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a tofu sandwich.

Kevin Rudd
Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Akermans in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A tofu sandwich! a tofu sandwich! my kingdom for a tofu sandwich!