On Monday Andrew Bolt returned to work and successfully slapped down Bernard Slattery’s hostile takeover of his blog. (Can you picture a whimpering Slattery, prostrate and gesticulating, backing apologetically out of Andy’s office?) And it took only a few minutes for the trademark Bolta intellectual underhandedness to kick back in.

Tricky. How do you thank someone who didn’t actually want to help you gain freedom?

THE Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, will visit Australia this month to express gratitude for Australian efforts in toppling Saddam Hussein and to discuss trade opportunities in Iraq.

The trip follows an invitation from Kevin Rudd, but Mr Maliki will have to tread a delicate path as he seeks to praise Australia’s contribution to a war that Labor – and most Australians – did not support.

If it were up to Rudd, the Iraqi leader who’d be visiting would be Saddam Hussein.

Is this the new Godwin: person X disagreed with the Iraq war because of its completely bullshit premise and dodgy morality, so person Y continually smears person X by suggesting that they opposed the war because they supported Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that not supporting the war and not supporting Hussein are not mutually exclusive?

Name just ten times that Rudd has explicitly supported Saddam Hussein, Bolta. Just ten.

Andrew Bolt, from his liveblog of Sarah Palin’s Republican convention speech last week:

12.35pm: “As the mother of one of those troops [about to serve in Iraq], [McCain] is exactly the kind of man I want as Commander in Chief.” Ding! Fries are done Hit the bell.

Whose bell? The only Americans prepared to be consumed by patriotic zeal upon hearing a platitude like that are bound to be Republican voters anyway.

More importantly, I’m not convinced that reminding the rest of the voting public about their nation’s involvement in a vastly unpopular war, and tying John McCain into the narrative, is such a great idea — no matter how many times Andrew has shot his Bolt declared victory for the US and its allies.

Do we all remember when Andrew Bolt declared the Iraq war over? I was surprised as anybody when he paid for this billboard space recently to advertise the fact:

Darryl Mason at The Orstrahyun seems to have caught Andrew Bolt re-writing history after prematurely declaring history writ.

In early November last year, Murdoch media columnist Andrew Bolt proudly declared that “The War In Iraq Has Been Won”.

[...]

After a six week long holiday, Bolt has returned to declare again that the War In Iraq Is Now Won.

It’s easy, wrote Bolt last Sunday, “to publicly back George Bush now that the war in Iraq is won.”

But a few hours later, Bolt had a sudden and dramatic change of heart about whether the Iraq War has actually been won or not.

Bolt pulled the last Sunday blog post with the big fat “Iraq War Is Now Won” headline and deleted all traces of it from his blog and newspaper archive. However, it’s still listed on the Google News archive. When you click the link, you get nothing.

The next time Bolt referred to Iraq, on Monday, he claimed that Iraq has been secured, and its democracy and thousands of Iraqis lives saved, all thanks to the Bush troop surge. But he didn’t say the war has been won. Instead he says it is, simply, “going well”.

Read Darryl’s full investigation of the mystery disappearance of the ‘W’ word.

That politics and religion should be separated
(Read the whole debate)

First negative: John Surname

“And God said, let there be light! And Lo, there was. The Lord was very pleased with this new invention, because now he could get a suntan. But he wasn’t finished yet. He knew he would have to find something to fuck up his creation. It was too perfect for the humans he was yet to create. The Lord stood to his full height and thundered “LET THERE BE POLITICIANS!”

Good morning distinguished guests, bloggers and assorted riff-raff. I am John Surname and for the next 600 words I’d like to present the negative side of this debate.

You see, what Magic Bellybutton knows and essentially ignored is that God is the original politician. He is the ultimate politician. You can protest. You can demand a recount. You can even vote for the Greens, but He has declared himself President-For-Life and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. Just like John Howard, God believes in the illusion of choice. We can vote Labor, and we can vote Liberal, we can even vote for God’s favourite party, Family First but it doesn’t make any difference as He is still calling the shots as leaders from all parties are too pathetic and lowly to reject Him.

God not only believes in capital punishment, He invented it. If you tried to pull any shit in His time he would smite you with a thunderbolt from the sky. God also invented Homophobia, and hasn’t that one lasted? In fact, many of our laws today derive from His parchment, The Best Little Whorehouse in Sodom (later renamed the Bible).

My esteemed opponent chose to imagine what life would be like if politics were controlled by a fake religion. That is rubbish. Scientology will never be in control as He wouldn’t allow it. Instead of making up fake hypotheticals, let’s see what good religion has done in politics:

1. Tony Abbott.
Tony Abbott is not only one of Australia’s finest politicians, he is one of Australia’s finest men. His loyal devotion to the Lord, and opposition to RU486 (known by God as Satan’s Pill) has earned him a special place in Heaven. The Lord believes that we should all strive to be more like Tony Abbott, and less like 50 Cent.

2. The Crusades.
Although the Crusades weren’t always successful, the Lord thought they were awesome and absolutely supported their aims. Even though they never took back the Holy Lands, the Crusaders got the last laugh as they are in Heaven, and the Muslims, like all Muslims, are burning in Hell.

3. The Iraq War
The Iraq War was an excellent piece of foreign policy that tops the achievements of the glorious Bush Administration. Bush has been reported as saying that God told him to do it. My source tells me this is entirely true.

4. Family First.
The Lord thinks Family First are, quote, “Lyk totally genius man!”. His favourite part is the clever way they hide their religious beliefs under the banner of “families”. God thinks this is hilarious because He doesn’t give a shit about families, Hell, he even allowed his own son to die. The truth of the matter is, Family First are a prank played on us by Steve Fielding (in consultation with God). I mean, how to do you think Steve Fielding wound up in the Senate? You can’t tell me there wasn’t more than a little divine intervention there!

In concluding, it frankly doesn’t matter what you do or who you vote for, as the moral standards He set down thousands of years ago still govern our lives today. He is President-For-Life and will remain so until the Sun swallows the Earth is a spectacular lightshow that we will all miss, but he will enjoy quite thoroughly.

A piece of perfect sense spoken by Bob Brown:

“Four years ago, Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club,” Senator Brown said.

“Four years ago, John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war. I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm.”

Pretty much says it all.