Tory loons attack Aunty, again

Serial loon.

As a journalist it is almost impossible to describe the level of frustration you feel when you see the prime minister, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the communications minister joining in a chorus with the more routine type of serial loon (Cory Bernardi, pictured) to lambast the ABC for publishing stories based on material sourced from security agencies by whistleblower Edward Snowden. It is as though politicians on the Right have decided, en masse, to drink the Kool Aid mixed up for their benefit by conservative media players (yes, that's anyone employed by Rupert Murdoch) and participate in a naked hula session on the roof of Parliament, in the moonlight, accompanied by a barbershop choir of giant rainbow-hued geckos with fluorescent eyeballs.

In the UK, the Guardian's Alan Rusbridger has today been questioned by a parliamentary committee about his media organisation's reporting on the Snowden leaks, so the madness is evidently not restricted to antipodean climes; clearly said geckos are able to engage in international air travel and acclimatise themselves adequately to the severe low temperatures that characterise a Northern Hemisphere winter.

Rusbridger did make one point that is worth detailing when he said that once media outlets stop publishing material provided to them by whistleblowers and leakers those people will simply cut out the middleman and publish the material they possess directly to the internet. I think it's pretty safe to say that even the most egregious serial loon would prefer to see a sober and responsible journalist (which, by the bye, rules out all of Australia's commercial media outlets with the exception of Fairfax) oversee the publication of controversial information, including proper redactions, than to see a whole cache of sensitive government documents thrust, pulsating, down the throat of an unsuspecting public.

But the reaction of the Tory loons in Australia has something especially creepy about it, a sort of Pavlov's-dog, knee-jerk quality like when a group of dumb animals fly off squawking when you wave your arms at them so they don't shit on your nice, clean car. I suspect that the smelliest pile of shit would derive from the arse of Bernardi but I hesitate to delve to deeply into the mysteries of his colonic effluent lest he offer to show me. Bad boy, Cory!