Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Tory Maguire, Barnaby, jolly Joe Hockey, the red head and how to crib ...


It's the business of intellectuals to be clever dicks, full of smart arse asides, and silly chardonnay fuelled cafe latte pumped up satirical remarks, and in the world of politics, to be eunuchs in a harem, because frankly they can talk about doing it, but they don't actually know how to do it.

Intellectuals lack any charm or cleverness - the natural appeal and charm of say a John Edwards or a Sarah Palin. How they berated that poor man for his hair fixation, and that poor woman for the way she could see Russia just across the water.

I was reminded of this with the recent fuss over Sarah Palin scribbling cheat notes on her hand, as if this somehow meant she was a bit out of court calling out Obama for using a teleprompter, when she was only recycling a convenient trick she'd learned when sitting school exams.


It's typical of these so called intellectuals to rail at someone who clearly has a short term memory problem, and worse still is the suggestion that Palin availed herself of crib notes.

Why if she'd headed off to the urban dictionary, this is what she'd have read as a definition of crib notes:

A small instrument used to aid in the art of cheating. It is generaly small peices of paper with answers to a test, or just notes on a specific topic.

Tips on Cheating:

-Do NOT write on yourself, it is impossable to hide if a teacher begins to question you.

-Make sure the crib notes can be easily destroyed. Try chewing gum and if a teacher becomes suspicious eat the peice of paper and they'll never know.

You see!? Do not write on yourself, as it's easy for smart arse condescending lefties to mock you, and to call you a luddite and a technology phobe for preferring ink on flesh to a teleprompter. As for the alternative, eat chewing gum? What sort of advice is that?

The same thought occurred to me at the sight of Joe Hockey turning up on Talkin' Bout Your Generation wearing a gold crown, waving a wand and prancing around holding a pink tutu:


Poor Joe still can't understand why he did it, or how he was convinced to get into the gear, and I can only sympathise and suggest the show's producers have a fiendish hypnotiser machine they put all their guests through so that they're malleable.

But then Joe reminded us that he'd once worn shrek ears, so it's likely all TV shows have this fiendish Fu Manchu machine:



And naturally this had led to clever dicks and smart arses having fun by comparing Joe to Shrek in all kinds of witty ways:


But is it fair to call Joe lightweight when he's just a used car salesman who wants to be loved, and who knows he can sell you a right old lemon if he loves you even more, perhaps even with bonus Trucoat.

Customer: We sat here right in this room and went over this and over this!

Jerry: Yah, but that TruCoat -

Customer: I sat right here and said I didn't want no TruCoat!

Jerry: Yah, but I'm sayin', that TruCoat, you don't get it and you get oxidization problems.
It'll cost you a heck of lot more'n five hunnert -

Customer: You're sittin' here, you're talkin' in circles! You're talkin' like we didn't go over
this already!

Jerry: Yah, but this TruCoat -

Customer: We had us a deal here for nine- teen-five. You sat there and darned if you didn't
tell me you'd get this car, these options, WITHOUT THE SEALANT, for nine-teen-five!

Jerry: Okay, I'm not sayin' I didn't ... (
rest of screenplay for Coen Brothers' Fargo is here).

Oops, I'm starting to ramble a little, like I'm suggesting jolly Joe might try to sell us the TruCoat, but the point is this, Pauline Hanson had a great career as a politician.

Sure she spent only two and a half years as an actual MP for the seat of Oxley, but think of her other achievements, with a very successful stint on Dancing with the Stars (curse you Bec Cartwright, and damn you to hell) and her incisive work The Truth, with its revelations about aboriginal women eating their babies, and tribes cannibalising their members, and likely enough Australia destined by 2050 to have a part machine Chinese Indian president by the name Poona Li Hung.

Now everybody's talking about 2050! Was she a visionary or what?

And in her short stellar career, who brought her down? Why it was those smart arse intellectuals with their fancy airs about decent fish and chips, and redheads, led by that lycra-clad lout Tony Abbott, whom it turned out, had financed disgruntled former One Nation member Tony Sharple's court case against Hanson (here).

As Miranda the Devine would tell you, never trust a man who rides bicycles wearing lycra.

Now with all this background, and fully primed on the brief, I trust you're ready to read Tory Maguire, and Political snobs risk turning Barnaby into a martyr.

Of course the effete ponces amongst you might think that Tory is something of a bubble headed booby and that's why she's so worried about what the political snobs and latte sippers might do to Barnaby, like make him a political martyr. Sob, just like they do it to Tory:

Ahhh, now we get it. Lindsay Tanner is smarter than that “freak show” Barnaby Joyce.

In case we didn’t get the message in parliament last week (we can be a bit slow sometimes) Mr Tanner spelled it out again on Meet the Press on the weekend. Not only is Senator Joyce “off the planet”, his team mate Joe Hockey is a “lightweight”.

A bit slow sometimes! Never! But Tory does give us a convincing explanation for Sarah Palin reverting to school days ways:

Yesterday in parliament he (Tanner) repeated the lesson again for those who’d wagged the last one or drifted off while doodling on our pencil cases.

Or perhaps scribbled notes on their paws!

Mr Hockey is “out to lunch”, and again he filled us in on Barnaby. According to Mr Tanner, Senator Joyce is evidence of “a very big question mark over the leader of the opposition’s judgment for appointing him in the first place.”

Oh dear, them's fighting words for Tory. There's a hard rain gonna fall, and not on Barnaby, dear old Barnaby, but that smug pontificating coffee sipping Tanner. As if Joe's out to lunch when there's a tutu to be worn or Barners is a worry when he carries on like a barnyard mule:

For someone who’s so much smarter than his counterpart, Mr Tanner seems to have skipped the chapter in Politics for Dummies called “Australians don’t like smug politicians who reckon they’re smarter than everyone else.”

Oh yes you clever dick ivory tower prunes, time for a bit of tall poppy lopping. Think you're smarter than me because you can put two thoughts together in actual English!

Worse of course, Tory has strong evidence that this coffee sipping snobbery is spreading:

A strong collective wisdom has formed in the commentary about the Coalition Finance spokesman that he’s a dolt.

And for a moment there, you might think Tory is amongst them:

Personally I think our foreign aid budget should be increased, not decreased, for two reasons: it’s the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do.

Steady, by that kind of logic, you might end up calling Barnaby a dolt. Let's adjust the rose-coloured glasses:

But it is naive in the extreme to think that’s the only view out there.

Indeed. Just as it's naive to think there's only one view about the earth being round, or the moon landing being real, or Lord Monckton being a genius as opposed to a huckster. Carry on:

There’s not many people ringing talk back radio demanding we boost our funding to our troubled pacific neighbours or sling a few billion the way of Africa.

Except perhaps John Howard, who was always willing to help out in the Pacific, to keep it pacific:

And was Saturday’s paper’s filled with people condemning Senator Joyce? No. Instead in the Daily Telegraph there were letters like:

“Just how much longer do we have to put up with the childish antics of the Federal Labor Party who now resort to pathetic name-calling of Barnaby Joyce? It’s good to see Barnaby Joyce didn’t lower himself to their level,” wrote Gail Marsh of Riverstone.


Oh how I sobbed along with Gail. How fortunate Barnaby doesn't lower himself to the level of other politicians. Why when he called Kevin Rudd a psycho chook, he was just producing a fine insightful piece of rustic psychiatric analysis (and there's more Barnabyisms here).

Wait, there's even more insightful analysis from Daily Terror readers:

“Senator Barnaby Joyce is one of the few politicians who is making sense. His foreign aid comment made a lot of sense. We are billions in debt and borrowing more and more ... and we are still offering foreign aid. We should be looking after ourselves first,” wrote Bonny Nobrega of Earlwood.

And yes, by golly the wisdom of Daily Terror readers doesn't stop at Barners:

(Completely off track but worthy of sharing is this letter to the Tele from Susie Colvin of Bilgola Plateau: “All this talk about Tony Abbott wearing budgie smuggles is childish but I would like to say to his detractors that he at least appears to have a budgie to smuggle.”)

Or as we like to say on loon pond, some chicken, some neck. Some budgie, some smuggler.

I wonder how these people feel when Mr Tanner calls the man with whom their views accord a “freak show”? Or when commentators say his position makes him politically untenable? Pretty cheesed off I imagine.

Oh how I sob, cry, rend the air with my crooning, and don sackcloth and ashes, I so feel the pain of these cheesed off Daily Terror readers. How dare these clever dicks send up Barnaby.

The government’s “the opposition is stupid” theme was expanded during Question Time yesterday when Kevin Rudd called Tony Abbott “the straight talker from central casting.” Taking the piss out of people for speaking in coherent sentences is a high-risk political strategy, especially from the man who coined the phrase “programmatic specificity.”

Oh yes! Way better instead to lie down in the middle of the road, and let Tony Abbott's stream of invective run over you like a steamroller in search of a suet pudding.

I would have thought the left, and the more mainstream elements of the conservative side of politics would have learned how ineffective it is to write someone off as a half-wit when that strategy didn’t work with a certain red-headed fish and chip shop owner from Southern Queensland.

Would have thought? This whole piece is supposed to be about political thinking? The redhead from the fish and chip shop shouldn't have been mocked for being a lightweight a bit short of a tasty intellectual beer and flour batter? And didn't get taken out in short order, by the mainstream parties ganging up on her and her party, and reducing it to a rump so that the natural two party order could continue?

So it seems:

You don’t have to agree with Barnaby Joyce but mocking him is going to have the effect of cementing his existing support base, and possibly giving him a leg up with some people who were undecided but don’t like smug bastards.

Well there's really only one response, isn't there, to Tory and her misguided musings.

To be a smug bastard and mock Barnaby and Hanson and Chairman Rudd and Tony Abbott, and above all dumb clucks like Tory Maguire who surely should stay away from political commentary, especially when it involves recycling of letters to a rag like the Daily Terror.

As if politics isn't about cut and thrust, and taking your fun where you find it.

Oh and I see I forgot to mention Joe Hockey in that list though he does look very fetching when he dons the glad rags. So much, it's worth taking another look. Lightweight? Joe? Only if you think the dancing hippos in Fantasia are lightweight:


Update: and my two favourite responses to Tory's piece to date?

People might not like smugness, but they like idiocy even less (Jane).

I’m not sure which is worse - attacking Barnaby for being a fool, or defending him for being one (persephone).

Well played, and surely The Punch should be offering a prize of a bottle of chardonnay (for slurping thereof) and a latte (for sipping) for best comment of the day, since they get the columnists and contributors they deserve by paying them nothing.

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