Devastated by the news that no job is currently on offer for the whiggish Costello in the Future Fund - the entire future of whiggishness now thrown into despair and an existentialist sense of futility and absurdity throughout the country - we decided to take a look at the state of the OzCar affair.
In the latest developments, treasurer Wayne Swan has refused to resign, describing any hints of favoritism or misleading parliament as ridiculous, even absurd - while the PM was calling upon Malcolm Turnbull to resign if he failed to produce concrete evidence of a damning email central to the affair within 24 hours. Which of course follows upon Turnbull's own call to Chairman Rudd to stand in parliament, apologise and to resign.
There's a game of high class poker going on here - isn't it a whiz that finally Network Ten through its new sports channel One has introduced the notion of poker as a sport - and we shall soon see who is holding the cars (oops, sorry, that's a typo, the cards) and the emails, and then what a fine flurry of floozies there'll be in parliament.
Meantime, I thought it worthwhile to head over to Piers Akerman for the inside gen on the scandal, seeing as how it's now been dubbed Utegate by the Daily Terror, while it seems that suddenly Malcolm Turnbull has never actually seen the mysterious email which he has used as the basis for demanding the resignations of the PM and the Treasurer.
(Yes meantime the country might be going to hell in a handbasket, but don't worry about that, not when high matters of state surrounding Utegate are involved, especially when you have to admire the skill of tabloid writers dragging Watergate back into public mind yet again in what can only be called a breach of Godwingate lawgate - unless of course you want to plead the Chewbacca defence, which gets you out of anything).
And how could we have doubted Akerman? The fat owl of the remove is in fine form, in his trenchant Openness is the first casualty.
Not only does he trawl through utegate, but he manages to drag up for the nth time (where n is why to the point of tedium) the shocking long-running Heiner affair, which remains only long running because of the fat owl's eternal diligence. Or is that vigilance? If only he'd keep up the same relentless inquisition and disquisition on Roswell, so we could finally learn the truth about the aliens in our midst.
But surprisingly Akerman is somewhat subdued in the matter of adjectives over utegate, which is interesting, since his adjectival exuberance is generally a good guide to the level of heinous crimes committed. Adjectival hysteria is a sure guide to us being close to the apocalypse.
Sure we have appalling example of the arrogance of power, and shredding any claim of running an open and transparent government, and cynical campaigns and an embarrassing appetite for openness, and the throwing to the wolves of that rooster Swan, and dubious practices and a call to stop this charade, and a demand for an order to stop blocking the truth, and a pious request for everyone to come clean about their roles in this shabby mates' business - but it all feels a little like rote, a little half-hearted.
Though it has to be said that the eliding over the matter of the actual existence of the key email is elegant in an exceptionally modest and minimalist way:
Whether or not a particular email is found is almost irrelevant. The other emails indicate the pattern of behaviour and the damage done to Treasury as an institution over the past 18 months.
There is sufficient evidence out now to show the statements made to Parliament about this affair by Rudd and Swan are untrue and that Grant was given special treatment. All the rest is humbug.
There is sufficient evidence out now to show the statements made to Parliament about this affair by Rudd and Swan are untrue and that Grant was given special treatment. All the rest is humbug.
Bah humbug indeed, and it's left to the coven of conspiratorial commenters to conjure up the truth depths of Chairman Rudd's despicable behaviour. For there's a gray pall over our once open and vital capital city, as utter hypocrisy descends from the skies, and everybody yearns for the end of the worst government Australia has ever had to endure.
It seems there's a cover up of the cover up of the cover up, with obfuscation the only refuge of these scoundrels, as these political animals gull the electorate.
But perhaps the comment I loved most was when the conversation devolved to the question of the media, remembering that Chairman Murdoch owns 120 newspapers, give or take, and reaches seventy per cent of the newspaper audience in Australia every week (not to mention his significant hand in the ownership of cable television, or more generally, the way the private sector holds ownership of the free to air television networks which dominate up to eighty per cent of audience ratings).
One poor hapless reader decided to call the fat owl out on his claim that the media pack is inherently politically biased, and to the left of course, citing his own columns as if they constituted some kind of coherent evidence, and bringing this retort from another reader about ...
To which the fat owl added the benign opinion:
Lauren, I put forward my opinion. It is clearly marked as such. Those as the ABC, for example, claim to put forward News but it is in fact Opinion and it is invariably biased.
So I'm strangely optimistic that there might be some beneficial fall out from this whole utegate matter, since it is clear that, if the VAST majority of the media is left wing or extreme left wing, then it follows that the VAST majority of the employees within Chairman Murdoch's extensive empire have to be inclined to the left wing or the extreme left wing.
It therefore follows, in the interests of saving the country, that Akerman must immediately embark on a name and shame campaign, exposing and ridiculing the VAST left wing elements within the empire, outing them and hopefully ruining them, so that the media in this country can swing somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.
And we're not just talking about the obvious straw running dogs like Phillip Adams, dressed in as harmless, tedious examples of balance and inclusiveness. We're talking about the VAST number of borers at the heart of this VAST left wing conspiracy, so unmanning (underpersonning if you feminists insist) the media that they can only indulge in jibber jabber, and ruining Chairman Murdoch's good work for the country.
Oh and as for the Chewbacca defense?
Johnnie Cochran (hired by a record company filing a lawsuit against Chef for harassment when Chef asks for a credit on a song):
... ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
... Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
My own prediction on the matter of utegate? Chairman Rudd will use the Chewbacca defense and the insidious left wing white ants inside Chairman Murdoch's media empire will let him get away with it.
Which is why Chairman Rudd and O. J. Simpson are one and the same! And Australia is doomed. Remember, you read it here first.
Meantime, any attempt to actually run the country will resume following the next election.
(Below: note the alarming similarity of Chewbacca to Chairman Rudd, especially the sinister glazed, staring eyes).
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