The week began with the combined forces of the Foam-O-Sphere directing their heavy artillery on a supposed weak spot in the hitherto impregnable defences of the Rudd campaign.
Altitudinous egghead Peter Garrett, provided the foamers with their first big break when he neglected to insist that China and India must tighten their carbon belts before Australia would tighten hers.
Mr. Garrett had agreed that the belts of China and India must be tightened for global warming to be slowed, but hadnt tied our tightening to their tightening and as a result found himself in a tight and tricky spot.
The Foam-O-Sphere fired a withering front page barrage with memorable headlines like Ha Gotcha, Climate Calamity for Labor and Dont even think about voting for these anti-business-union-thug-jobkilling-communist-symathising-me-tooing-pretenders to the throne or words to that effect. And the Government followed up the attack, yelling Jobs Away confidence bolstered by its recent climate makeover and fad dieting binge and a hastily tightened carbon corset.
This media barrage was partly designed to derail Labors planned week of environment policy releases, and partly to cover up the embarrassing stain caused by a very unsightly Malcolm Turnbull loves Kyoto cabinet leak.
The foaming flopped however when Health Minister Tony Abbott decided to exhibit signs of a personality. A big no-no in these tightly scripted campaigns. Mr. Abbotts first crime was to accuse a dying man of not being pure of heart. The PM had made it clear last week in response to The Chaser song that insulting dead people was unforgivable, but Mr. Abbott choosing to skate close to the edge – was still burnt. The PM having no choice but to support the beleaguered Mr. Abbott lauded his actions as showing spine. More like spine tingling Id say.
That was just one part of an Abbott trifecta which included swearing and unpunctuality. The end result being that Mr. Abbott managed to ensure that the main TV headlines of the week were all about him.
As the week comes to an end, with the polls looking unchanged the Foamentariat, to its profound frustration, is left with just one angle of attack. The rather lame charge of me-tooism. With no opportunity to thunder about ideology or market interference, the foamsters are getting intensely frustrated and more and more likely to thunder about not very much at all.
Rudds plan to differentiate only on Workchoices is looking savvy indeed. Will we see in the last week of this campaign a sudden and dramatic policy shift from this most pragmatic of PMs in an attempt to resuscitate his political career?. The PM remember is not above a bit of ‘me-tooism’ of his own. So might we see the most daring me-tooism of all in the final weeks? No. I dont mean the PM abandoning Workchoices and adopting ALP policy. I mean going all the way and joining the Labor Party.
Update Friday 5:00pm: Woops. A last minute blunder by Peter Garrett potentially blows all the gains of the week. An emergency meeting will be required to bang a few eggheads together, and a clarification by Rudd explaining that there will of course be some adjustment of policy once the true state of the mess that the government has left behind is revealed. Plus a subtle reminder that Steve Price is not a credible witness anyway.
Get with the program Rex,
Me-tooism is so this morning.
We have now moved to, “They plan to destroy the foundations of our civilsation”.
Please keep up!
Re: the the 5 O’clock news.
Steve Price looked like he was just plain pissed that Pete and Wilco didn’t offer him a choof. But, as the mustachioed master once said: Peter knows how to play the crowd.
Phil K. Dick woulda called it a neat jape — in one one fell poop, his Tallness Invited the Foamentariat to hose him down, wasting valuable media suds with no perceptible damage to the Bleetocracy; Tempted the Tory desperadoes into forlornly hauling their lifeboat back up the davits (again) — All the while tossing Labor’s Lefty desperadoes a 10×8″ colour glossy pick of a lifeline.
The Lib’s frantic opportunism is obliviating their message — they’re gonna waste more time chewing on Garrett’s boot while Uncle Kev gets on with the Plan. Or else.
Gentlemen,
The Saturday morning newspaper consensus is that that the Garrett gaffe will see “me-tooism” morph into a “they’re pretending to be like us just to get elected” line.
This is all the Government has got to go with and they’ll be pushing it like mad from now to the bell. The foamentariat will be more than than willing to support this line, and we can expect to see it on endless-loop too.
Team Rudd must promise to do a Bracksy – Basically do almost nothing in their first term to prove that they can control themselves. Garrett must be gagged (nobody’s fault but his), and then in the second term – once the Libs have imploded the renovations can commence.
Rex, you closed the week a little early because you didn’t allow professional idiot P Garrett to make his customary two gaffes per week. Is it any wonder he didn’t vote for 10 years. He’d be flat out finding the polling booth.
DP you’ll notice that that Garrett blunder made it into the 5:00pm update.
He needs to be gagged for the rest of the campaign – but that’s no reason to write him off as an effective member of the Government.
He’s learned a few hard lessons and I reckon he’s cluey enough to finesse the gap between his activist history and the necessary and sometimes ugly compromises that a polly must make.
Precisely my point, DP. From anyone else this would’ve been messy, but from Garrett? Tactical decoy, albeit accidental. Think of it as dropping flares and chaff on the final leg of a bombing run — His apparent lunacy makes it hard for punters to take his stuff-ups seriously, so, will the Libs bet their future on Garrett’s credibility as a Labor apparachic? They’ll have just this one-trick-pony to answer any new policy that Rudd drops on ’em.
I am not at all surprised or shocked at Mr Garretts behaviour. At one time the vertiginous rock industry was his world with its burning beds and all. And anyone can forget to vote for 10 straight years.
For years weve been entertained by a host of professional idiots masquerading as politicians. Weve had a minister for sport mount his missus on his office desk thank God it wasnt done during question time in the House (anyone witness a bank teller pulling the same caper while handling your transaction?); weve sent a former pilfering Premier to assume the post of Ambassador to the Holy See (Ill bet the RC church is still conducting an inventory of its reliquary); one forgetful MP didnt remember he owned a 50% share of a concreting business (no anamnestic remedy was needed to remind him to bank the cheques); a Premier who found a spare AUD$300,000 to put the thriving metropolis of Packsaddle NSW (population 2) on the must see list of visiting connoisseurs of fine art; and, the valiant effort of both major parties who contributed some of the reported US$15 billion to the struggling Soeharto family thereby making sure that family never experienced the sordid distress of penury. Just a small sample of the marvelous entertainment served up to us by alleged politicians.
What does shock and mortify me is the fact that for years weve been told that the use of marijuana has no long-term effect on the user. Now Im not so sure.