John Quiggin

With some journalists, decline sets in gradually. With Andrew Bolt, for whom I and plenty of others used to have some respect, it set in within the space of one day: March 5, 2004, the day he devoted his Herald Sun column to the most bizarre and scurrilous defamation of Mel Gibson - or of just about anyone else - which I have ever read in my life. (Declaration of interest: though a co-religionist of Mel Gibson's I have never met him, or his family, or any of his current congregation.)

The Herald Sun has now unsportingly removed this particular Bolt column from its Net archive: a misfortune for those (I'm not among them) who take pleasure in watching a man shoot himself in the foot with a repetitive recklessness that would alarm even a millipede. So to learn, via Pandagate, that Bolt is now in the business of hurling around damaging accustions about Robert Corr (with whom I'm even less familiar than I am with Mel Gibson), minus such trifling matters as hard evidence, is unsurprising, however saddening.

One thing to be said in Bolt's favour, though. Bungler he may well be. Drivelling apologist he may well be for the Turkish Cypriot Army and suchlike charm-kittens (this can be confirmed by typing "Andrew Bolt" and "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" into Google). But at least Bolt manages to avoid the language of lavatory walls. Even that modest achievement is transparently beyond his fellow Herald Sun style guru and moral philosopher, Terry McCrann, who last July publicly informed an opponent at Crikey: "You are what is known in polite circles as a complete f**k".

What an absolute hoot!

What did Bolt write about Gibson's film?

It is a dreadful film with no redeeming features and no saving graces. A few reviews here. Or did he point out that Gibson's father is a Holocaust denier and friend of the infamous Fredrick Töben of the Adelaide Institute.

For me, it was his review of Finding Nemo.

Robert Corr has been admirably even-handed in his documentation of this "affair" and Andrew Bolt's throwing his weight around and attempting to intimidate him by contacting his employers and threatening to write a column about him is unethical, childish and repugnant in the extreme.

and the Liberal Students in question have now deleted all their entries and password protected their site. you'd think they;d welcome the hits they've garnered in the last few days as a means of revivifying their thinking in the free market for ideas. what a bunch of pussies!!

Francis, one of the worst things (hard to rank them) about Gibson's film is its obsession with a pre-Vatican II theology that suffering is a positive good.

Spot on, Jason. Defunding the Melbourne Uni Liberal Club is perhaps the best argument for VSU around at the moment.

I have never meet anyone I have wanted to punch in the face so quickly as Alex Lew.

It's a great affair: sorry to self promote but I've been weighing into the legal ethics side of this one a bit and would encourage interested readers to go to Melbourne Lefty, Quantum Meruit or my own link (which links several others) to see more extended thrashing out of the issues.

The young lib/law student who has held himself out as 'representing' someone, written a 'legal' threat letter and written BA/LLB IV on it on the basis that he is a 4th year law student, is in serious trouble if he wants to get admitted as a lawyer down the line I think.

Absolutely feckin' hilarious. Robert Corr's gone up in my estimation.

It is typical of that Law Student however to try to make himself out as something he is not. The only reason the Young Libs were elected was the left wing student candidates were all thrown out by the company running the elections which turned out to be run by their political allies who sent the Union broke last year.

I am sooooo out of touch. No idea what this is all about. Could someone provide a 50-word synopsis of this apparent cause celebre de blog so this old fart can be really, like, down with the yoof? Has it got any turkeys in it?

Synopsis

A female Melbourne Uni student and Liberal supporter was caught masquerading as a greens supporter at a voting booth in the recent Federal elections, and reprimanded by Labor member Michael Danby. When the student and her friends started discussing this on a private blog, a leftist TV writer and others started mocking her on their own blogs. The student's law-student boyfriend then tried to intimidate the TV writer with a legal letter.

A fictitious person who said he worked with the TV writer then wrote to the Liberal student offering to help and warning that the TV writer was hiring a lawyer. Shortly afterwards this was confirmed when a letter arrived seemingly from the TV writer's lawyer. Later the TV writer's lawyer was found to be fictitious too.

In the meantime, the Sun-Herald's Andrew Bolt queried the fictitious TV writer's lawyer as to some implied threats in the letter. Around this time the collection of emails was posted on Rob Corr's blog, leading Bolt to suspect that Corr was behind the fictitious characters. Corr denies this and another participant supports the claim. In the meantime Bolt had complained to Corr's politician boss.

Thanks Tony. Now fully apprised of the situation, and none the wiser.

Warbo, I did warn you this was student politics!

The kids of today.

It wouldn't happened in my day.
Make that if it did I wouldn't remember!

But where does the bimbo picture fit in, Tony? That seems quite central to the plot from what I could gather in my five-minute visit to Robert's blog.

James, it wasn't important to the story, which is why the various other descriptions are not clear.

Thanks, Tony. Now, while I think of it, I never quite understood the background to Micky's separation from Marlene in Days of Lives. Could I ask you to...

There are other bits. The Right in this discussion posted Michael Danby's fiance's photo on Hotornot, and kept writing to people's employers to get them disemployed - three times it happened or was strongly implied to happen. Andrew Bolt sank to that as well.

As far as I can tell, the mock lawyer was constructed because Ms Fits was outed by the Right as Diana Elgar, writing for television under the name of Marieka Hardy. This is a truly hilarious mistake, since DE doesn't exist and came from nowhere, while MH does and leaves a very public trail.

It is very dirty. Having said that, there was a heap of invective thrown around which sometimes made me think I was reading Tim Blair instead of the younger Left.

As John says, it's all student politics - but I don't remember student politics destroying a whole Student Union over real estate deals, based on a deal between the Labor Right and Dry Tories.

Thanks, Tony. Now, while I think of it, I never quite understood the background to Micky's separation from Marlene in Days of Lives. Could I ask you to ...

There's a sequel coming up where this uni guy writes on a blog, and then his Mum pops up with a breathtaking clear discourse on the topic at hand ...

Well, if Pandagate publicises MsFits' blog and gains her a wider audience - then it's a good thing. I find her highly entertaining - almost like the Hunter S. Thompson of Australian blogdom.