Apples and Syringes

In the Herald, Gerard Henderson again demonstrates the function of hiring numbskull right-wing pundits for small-l liberal broadsheets: to publish stuff that the pwoggy readership can enjoy getting indignant at, which at the same time presents no intellectual challenge to refute:

It's understandable that Labor is aggrieved by the criticism of its carbon tax and national broadband network in such News Limited papers as The Australian and The Daily Telegraph. Before the 2007 election, the Coalition felt aggrieved by criticism over the AWB food-for-oil scandal and the "children overboard" controversy.

Undoubtedly Gerard thought that equating two ALP policies with two Coalition scandals, characterised by corruption and ministerial duplicity, made his point admirably, never mind considering how The Australian and The Daily Telegraph spruiked the Children Overboard lies immediately before the 2001 election when good journalism might have made a difference.

Of course, if you really want to annoy pwog broadsheet readers you hire right-wing columnists who aren't easily refuted cretins (yes, they exist) or - so very much worse - someone to the readership's left. Ooh, they hate that!