Sitting Ducks

It’s pretty clear from skimming through today’s MSM, that Friday 29 February 2008 is a slow news day.

Dennis Shanahan is desperately looking for flaws in Rudd’s 2020 summit, succeeding only in convincing me that he eats John West Salmon and no other. Oh, and he may have a thing for Cate Blanchett too, but that’s not as clear as the salmon thing.
There is one high-point to the Oz’s presentation today, and that’s Paul Keating’s ripost to Janet Albrechtsen.

Albrechtsen’s journalism is nothing more than belligerent and partisan fiction. She is simply a blackguard. And an exceptionally dull one at that.
Albrechtsen’s objection is to cosmopolitan Australia; to those people who will not accept the tawdry name-calling and labelling that are part and parcel of her political incorrectness.
Her journalism is not national debate. It is not reasoned argument. It is not even polite difference of opinion. It is vilification of the most addled variety.
Albrechtsen is a no-talent proselytiser for causes overtaken by history and events.

Keating remains delicious in his ability to clearly identify and name the things which aggravate. Albrechtsen’s no-talent rants clearly have managed to do that over the years. It’s interesting to note that Keating still makes mention of John Howard in this tirade. Obviously the wounds of 1996 have generated long-lived scar tissue on the Keating persona, even now, after Howard has been soundly beaten and discarded by the Australian people.
I didn’t think a whole lot of Keating the person, nor Keating the politician, Treasurer and Prime Minister, but I claim that’s due to my lack of political and economic awareness during the late `80’s and early `90’s. Becoming a home-owner in 1988 and riding the ‘recession we had to have’ does make one pay more attention. Hindsight and 12 years of Howardian conservatism have also opened my ideological eyes. History is a good teacher. I understand now whay Keating did what he felt had to be done during that period. It remains his ongoing legacy that the current Australian economy is so strong.
Chris Mitchell won’t sack Albrechtsen because he needs to keep the right-wing flag flying. Same reason he won’t dare sack Phillip Adams, for fear of being seen for what he really is. An apologist for a conservative and hard-right publishing house.
I agree with Keating that Albrechtsen is a lost cause, but in these post-Howardian defeat days, while a void still exists in the ideological environment, it’s nice to have someone to pick holes in who stands still and says “come get me!”