Rob makes a salient point. If Wood’s post rescue reaction had been to condemn Bush/Howard then I’m sure the story would have played out differently in the media. But then, there would have been elements of the right as ready to dump on him as they were on Martinkus. And he wouldn’t have had all those admiring words from Miranda D the other day.

And Rob. Who is this left who doesn’t love him? Why not name names given that I haven’t heard anyone complain about him yelling God Bless America and not everyone would have read or heard what you have. I mean if you look at this photo, what would one expect him to say? God bless Fiji? Or maybe they look like Nigerians?

I seriously do not understand the fuss over the Arsehole comment. My rule of thumb is, if someone puts a gun to your head and makes you do things you don’t want to do, you’re entitled to call them arseholes. Fair’s fair. Pretty mild, really. The comments replayed on Media Watch last night by Andrew Jaspan quite astounded, and outraged, me. They didn’t starve him … so? He should be grateful? Like, whatever.

Fair comment Al. My point is that the minute someone makes a comment against a certain view, a whole other set of views is imported in with it, usually on the basis of what someone else wrote somewhere sometime and not on the basis of what the person said or wrote themselves. So if you hold one view or are ambivalent about one thing, you apparently hold a particular set of views.

And being in a somewhat grouchy mood these last couple of days (for which I apologise, it’s no excuse) I thought I would just have a dig at that mindset.
Now yes I could easily apply that to anyone and everyone (including me) but it was a comment on the Wood for the Trees thread that made me chose this issue.

I don’t care about who likes Wood or not… in the end he is a flawed human like the rest of us. A drinker, a skirt chaser, a failed businessman, somewhat gauche and unsophisticated for some, but with a soft heart and a gruff exterior who yeah, would probably be good company down at the front bar. Who was just bouncing around Baghdad trying to make a quid with his deals. He could be my uncle (himself citizen of one coutnry, resident in another and with business dealings in the others).

To present him as he is does not mean one condones that he “deserved” to be kidnapped. If some have made that assessment then call it. But then call too the duplicity of others like our own minister Downer who were quick to dismiss Martinkus even as far as suggesting he had no business being in Iraq.

You know, before I started blogging I hadn’t heard of half these people which seem to be the favourite targets of all and sundry, be they opinion writers or Michael Bloody Moore and John Bloody Martinkus. The Australian’s editor may have a beef with Media Watch (and just how many people actually watch it anyway?) but to read it week after week after week stinks of the same sort of petty professional infighting I see every day in the office as if the recent brouhaha over Albrechtsen’s article wasn’t an example. Make the point and then get on with some good journalism of your own. Or as you say, lead, follow or get out of the way.

Although I suspect there your defense suggests a fourth alternative: get the other to change direction.

Well, Saint, a couple of years ago, ‘cheap little point scoring people like me’ were watching in disbelief as the I-can’t-believe-they’re-not-lefties ridiculed the plight of Jessica Lynch.

John Kampfner of the BBC led the charge with an appallingly loaded and inaccurate cheap shot aimed at ‘hitting back’ at US control of the Iraq-based media.

On the face of it, the story was so far fetched as to defy belief. Apparently, the US, bogged down in their 3 week war against Bobby Fisk’s non-existent battalions, needed a positive story to salvage their flagging morale, and turn the media’s attention away from the ‘quagmire’. So they engineered a stage managed film event, complete with ‘blank’ rounds and non-existent injuries to the girl.

Despite Kampfner’s furious backpeddling a couple of weeks later, the legend of ‘The Confected Rescue’ was born.

Skip forward two years, and the fairy tale ending to the Wood story is looking down the barrel of the same fate.

Oh, but that’s right - it was all in jest!

Well, no, I can’t accept that, I’m afraid. You see, some of the more extreme opinions-shaped-by-different-things-wing websites were openly speculating as to the clearly insufficiently emaciated and unbruised state of Wood.

Now satire apparently goes a long way. Hence the reason the painfully unfunny Glasshouse continues to excite mirth among the steadfastly non-aligned that watch the Apolitical Broadcasting Corporation. I actually caught about five seconds of it the other night, just long enough to catch some side splitting line about Vanstone getting a facial rash from licking the PM’s arse too much.

Comic gold!

Yep, that’s ’satire’ - otherwise known as ‘political humour’. I doubt there’s a single Howard voter that watches The Glasshouse, other than the odd channel surfer who pauses to marvel at the kindergarten leftism of its humour.

So satire is a very partisan form of humour. What might appear a light-hearted poke at the right’s, er, whatever view on the Wood chapter, is only really funny when viewed through two left lenses. When it follows shortly after Phil’s effort which ended with the line:

“Wood, mercenary to the end, and selling his story like so many wannabe starlets looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, obviously suits the News Limited template of what counts as news.”

…well, it gets one to thinking.

You might not hold quite so jaded a view of Wood, but your opinion of News Ltd reveals some very similar thinking.

You see, I’ve read the long suffering Oz’s columns on MW. If you’ve actually read those columns, you’d know that their major grievance was not an issue of left and right, it was a matter of commercial bias in favor of Fairfax. True, much was made of Marr’s declaration that good journalists were duty bound leftists. But, given that the spirit of the articles was in self defence, I fail to see Murdoch’s crime.

And Fairfax, from the altitude-challenged Jaspan down to the factually-challenged McGeough, don’t like Wood. He’s really not their sort of guy. He’s beer and pizza, not pastries and unwooded chardonnay.

I reckon I could sink a jar or two with Wood. He strikes me as a hard-to-scare good ‘ol boy. He’s stood up and dismissed the terrorists/ransom-kidnappers as the murdering pieces of shit they really are. In a time of greater moral clarity, he’d have been hailed as a champion. Not so these days.

The picture in Iraq isn’t looking that good at the moment. Today, for example, the bold Jihadis butchered another 30 plus fellow Muslims in courageous attacks against hard targets - like a hospital. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry. It also scares the hell out of me.

And I believe that Moore’s Minutemen Mujahadeeni feed on the doubt and self loathing in the Western press typified by McGeogh’s reporting.

I’m an old fashioned man, Saint. I believe that the time for dissent was before the first Australian troops set foot into Iraq. From that point, my favourite edict applies:

Lead, follow, or get out the way.

Yes, I can understand the humour in your post. I can almost imagine the voiceover to it on Backberner or, indeed, The Glasshouse. But what is your point? How does it promote the causes of democracy and enlightenment in the battle against violent medieval oppression?

One minute we are at a tipping point, the next minute it is all going swimmingly, the other minute it’s a nightmare. No it’s a war zone, yes it’s a nascent democracy. The three contradictory reports by senior U.S.officials this week on the strength of the insurgency was a case in point. I will accept that there will always be a level of uncertainty in trying to describe a fluid situation on the basis of incomplete information, but if our public figures and institutions - be they politicians, journos, the military or whatever - continue to push spin as opposed to a more realistic assessment of the situation and a more reasoned and transparent defense of their actions then one can hardly complain about the sort of mixed reaction we are seeing. It would never go away of course - but the criticisms may well be more constructive and productive.