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MORE MUSH FROM THE WIMP
Bob Ellis—who predicted a John Kerry landslide, thought Saddam Hussein’s mass killings weren’t pointless, and claimed that Osama bin Laden was almost certainly not responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US—writes:
The 20,000 children killed in Iraq by the Americans were only liberated into death. Their 400,000 close relatives only liberated into grief. And so too with the 70,000 adults and their 3 million close relatives and friends.
If Gerard Henderson thinks Sunday’s election was “worth it”, he should ask Paul Pardoel’s mother and wife why he didn’t think so before he, too, died.
And then debate me, publicly, any time. Like a true democrat would.
That’s from the Sydney Morning Herald’s letters page, about the only forum Ellis is likely to be published in these days.
Bob (who once promised to destroy me professionally) is always challenging people to public debates. Hey, bring it on! I’d like to see Ellis debate Mohammed and Omar, Hammorabi, or Zeyad.
Perhaps NSW premier Bob Carr (for whom Ellis sometimes writes speeches) could invite them here to receive a peace prize. Afterwards, Ellis—sober, in deference to Muslim custom—could debate all of these true Iraqi democrats.
UPDATE. Take a look, Bob.
Jesus wept. So that odious creep Bob Ellis has surfaced again, feeding off of someone’s grief as usual. Every time I see or hear Ellis it reminds me of a line from The Godfather (the book, not the movie) where Vito Corleone remarks that certain men go through life silently screaming, “kill me!” Fits Ellis to a T.
Anyone need a good laugh? Try reading Bob Ellis’s Books (he keeps churning them out!).
They usually have unusually bombastic titles such as “Goodbye, Jerusalem” and “[Something about] Babylon”. He also had the gall to publish a book attacking economic rationalism while simultaneously (and he has not recanted) being a leading sycophant of Paul Keating.Posted by David McBryde on 2005 02 01 at 05:24 PM • permalinkThere probably ARE people who would consider the ability to vote as one pleases, after decades of living under a murderous dictator, ‘not worth it’. I’d be willing to wager a large sum of money that MOST of these ‘not worth it’ types are to be found in Western Democracies where the blood spilled to ensure THEY can live free and vote was spilled long enough ago they have taken it for granted.
So, I guess what Ellis is saying is that had he been living under a murderous thug like Saddam he’d rather stay that way because the price for his freedom wouldn’t be ‘worth it’?
Posted by CJosephson on 2005 02 01 at 06:07 PM • permalinkApologies for being off-topic, but while we talking about the commentariat, it’s good to see that Emma Tom is injecting a bit of common sense into the debate as to what may or may not have happened to Mamdouh Habib at Guantanamo:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12116684%5E12274,00.html
ABC felt so distressed for the family of the airman casualty that they re-ran the terrorist video of the rocket being fired and the crash site,milking the strike against the coalition for all it was worth.Truly the left gets up early- so much nastiness between 6and 7 -before that I wouldn’t know.They took a very long swipe at(VIA U.S abc I think.The PATRIOT ACT.Torture,Guantanamo Bay and a Republican lswyer being “grilled”.They talked about the “sad” demise of the Chaser print edition.Reminisced fondly about the “memorable” edition which eveen had John Howard’s phone number on the cover with a headline saying phone him at home (droll). Yesterday they tried to scare the leftie young. Presenter- “the Elites in the U.S. seem to be hinting very strongly about a Draft (conscription).” He twice tried to conjure up the draft then being imposed in OZ.
I don’t think Bob Ellis can even get arrested in Sydney these days; he’s been out of his tiny mind ever since Keating got the arse, and the grants and board appointments dried up. With a bit of luck, when Carr gets te arse at the next state poll he’ll do a header off the Gap- I’d pay good money to anyone who videos it. BTW- did anyone catch the ABC’s disgraceful coverage of the RAF C130 and their hideous vulture-like hovering around the family of the dead crewmember? It would put the worst tabloid to shame; the ABC should be towed out to sea and sunk by naval gunfire.
You know, if they draft you, they have to give your gun back…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 02 01 at 10:54 PM • permalinkHaha, the blob is back! Very entertaining read, Tim…but you forgot one of Bob’s most ‘entertaining’ predictions (from March 2003) - that the invasion of Iraq would result in the “Mother of all Armageddons”!
http://timblair.spleenville.com/archives/002043.php
and
http://timblair.blogspot.com/2003_03_09_timblair_archive.html#90403209
Posted by Richard_of_Oz on 2005 02 01 at 11:06 PM • permalinkSeventy-year-old Iraqi exile Mehsin Imgoter holds his voting ballot up and begins to weep before putting it in the voting box as he votes in Iraq (news - web sites)‘s national election at a polling place in the Detroit suburb of Southgate, Michigan, January 28, 2005. Voters are electing a 275-member Assembly, which will draft Iraq’s Constitution. As he wept, he said he wished his son could be here with him. His son was killed in Iraq during the 1990-91 uprising that was crushed by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)‘s regime. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
I’m terribly sorry for your pain, Sir…WE (the Willing)should have acted sooner.
A few years ago Bob Ellis and the Australian poet Les Murray filmed a sentimental journey called, “Bastards from the Bush” which was shown on the ABC. I watched it and wondered what the hell Ellis was doing on the show since the nearest he’d ever been to the Bush was crapping under his mum’s rhubarb bushes when he was either pissed or stoned, or both. True to form Ellis gave his usual inimitable imitation of a single-cell amoeba, whilst Les Murray looked embarrassed and clearly wondered what the Hell he was doing there. At certain intervals, Ellis stopped off at various public telephones, rang Kim Beasly (then the leader of the Australian Opposition) and asked why Murray couldn’t be declared the “Australian Poet Laureate”? It would have been fascinating to hear Big Kim’s reply but he was probably too busy getting unstuck from the top turret of an Australian Army APC - a hurdle which, due to his avoirdupois, has given continual trouble since his days as Defence Minister.
In the event, the video image of Ellis importuning a Labor lame duck, whilst a genuine (200kg) Australian treasure tried to shrink into the background and slip through the gaps in the floorboards was less than illuminating.
I know that Australia is often quoted as having the most poisonous creatures on Earth, but please - do we have to keep Bob Ellis?Ellis’s crap about 100k deaths in Iraq is BS. A realistic count at http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ shows only a fraction of that. Get real.
I made the mistake of watching ,Nostradameus Kid, once, which is Ellis’ autobiography (at least as he remembers it). The scary thing was how similar it was to my life:
a) raised a seventh day adventist in country Lismore NSW;
b) was fairly religous in the early teens, but had a lot of questions;
c) went to uni and learnt of a whole other life.
The key differences are, however, that he went to Sydney uni during the late sixties, just after the ‘push’, while I went to UQ during the early eighties when Joh was in power and and instead of Bob Dillan, I was heavily influenced by The Cure, Midnight Oil and Flock of Seagulls :).
Not sure if that was the essential difference, but Bob seems to have spent all his time ever since trying to trying to prove he is just as great an intellect as the Clive Jameses and Les Murrays of the world, while I got a life. Ellis has used his upbringing (with exaggerated and appalingly caricatured religous beliefs) as a weak excuse for his obvious failure in this respect.
My wife has three uncles with a similar background (Newcastle rather than Lismore) who went to Sydney U at the same time as Bob. They thought he was a goose then too.
HABC News and Current Affairs is a disgrace. SELL IT i say!
Posted by Astonished on 2005 02 02 at 03:46 AM • permalinkOne other observation to add about Bob.
It was clear that religion is very important to how he sees himself. Rejection of Christianity at Uni only led to him substituting the Australian Labor Party for the Church, with Whitlam as the father, son and holy ghost. Keating in this case was merely St Paul…I guess that leaves Beazely as Friar Tuck :)Religiosity is sometimes offered as a sop to the audience. I cannot imagine Bob Ellis convincing a proper church audience with a background in his works that he is truly religious.
Les Murray probably could (the silver-tongued poet) and he might just be the real deal. It is an interesting counterpoint to this aside that George W. Bush does this all the time, and to audiences that are difficult to fool. He, and they too, are the real deal. More so than the average Australian audience.
The cynical say (or used to) that God is on the side of the Big Battalions. As a nominally christian country we need to remember that we are threatened by an ideology so opposed to Christianity (and all other religions)that no quarter will be given.
No quarter should be given in return. I could not say this if I was really Christian, I guess. That’s the conundrum we face, perhaps.
Soldiers know all about this. they have to be able to sacrifice all, if necessary, - so that the greater good will prevail after wards.Funny we haven’t had a snivel from Robert Manne yet.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 02 02 at 06:58 AM • permalinkI thought I was reading the obituary column when I came across Bob Ellis’ emotional (and inaccurate) half story in the SMH letters to the editor page today. Only that I find the obituary column usually more entertaining that the SMH letters.
I’ve heard that Bob hasn’t been feeling himself lately. But I disagree, arguing with a crowd is mass debating. What’s with this public request to debate Gerard Henderson anyway? Is he wanting publicity, say for another novel (which might be extending the definition a bit too far in his case), or something?
This guy knows what to do with terrorist sympathisers. Let’s get him along to the Ellis mass-debate.
“I didn’t want Nancy Pelosi talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation.”
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I’d be surprised if Bob Ellis is not a member of G.O.B.B.L.E. or the Grand Order of the Bouncing Bobbleheaded Leftist Eggheads. Has no fellow leftist grabbed his collar and expanded his plastic turkey consciousness?
Bob seems busy spreading the spurious claim of 100,000 civilian Iraqi casualties, a claim published at its author’s insistence prior to peer review in order to precede, by a few days, the US election. Bob should see
“Bogus Lancet Study� by Shannon Love, The Chicago Boyz, Oct. 29, 2004
http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html
and
“100,000 Dead—or 8,000: How many Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war?� by Fred Kaplan, Slate Oct. 29, 2004
http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2108887&
AND we should not let the left forget these other stories about the Iraqi children.
“Propagandizing Sanctions�
by Matthew McAllester of Newsday, May 24, 2003, Sun Journal via Newsday et al. Unfortunately, this article is no longer available gratis online, so it’s the one which I’ll quote.
75 words: Under the sanctions regime, “we had the ability to get all the drugs we needed,” says Ibn Al-Baladi’s chief resident, Dr. Hussein Shihab. “Instead of that, Saddam Hussein spent all the money on his military force and put all the fault on the U.S.A. Yes, of course the sanctions hurt - but not too much, because we are a rich country and we have the ability to get everything we can by money. But instead, he spent it on his palaces.”
“Saddam’s parades of dead babies are exposed as a cynical charadeâ€?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/25/wirq25.xml
by Charlotte Edwards, filed May 25, 2003, the Telegraph (UK)
“Suffer The Children�
http://heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6600315%5E25717,00.html
by Andrew Bolt, June 16, 2003, Herald Sun (Australia)
“Confessions of an Anti-Sanctions Activist�
http://www.meforum.org/article/548
by Charles M. Brown, Summer 2003, Middle East Forum
And last, but not least “Jailed Iraqi children run free as marines roll into Baghdad suburbs,� AFP, April 8, 2003
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/jailied.htm
As Wookie at Lucianne.com said, “You have to be this tall to go on the Saddam Jail Ride�:
Photo: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/photography/siraq/graphics/siraq11.jpg