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The Galumphing Mad Monk

Mike Carlton, in his irrepressible best style in his weekly piece in the SMH reflects on Tony Abbott's past week:

"On a visit to the Vatican museum a few years ago, I was shown down a long corridor lined with classical statuary, mostly of male nudes. Oddly, all the penises were missing. The guide explained that some demented medieval cardinal had run amok one night and smashed the sinful members with a hammer.

This colourful snippet of history popped into my head as I watched the galumphing progress of Tony "The Mad Monk" Abbott on the campaign trail this week. Chaos followed his every plodding step.

First he called the Tasmanian Health Minister a liar on radio. Then there was the gratuitous insult to Bernie Banton, the heroic asbestosis victim. After that, we had the late arrival for the TV debate with Labor's health spokeswoman, Nicola Roxon, followed by the sotto voce "bullshit" during the closing exchange of teeth-grinding unpleasantries. Finally, we had the news that he had comprehensively botched the much-trumpeted federal takeover of the Mersey hospital in Tasmania. One of the locals there gave him a public bollocking into the bargain.

It was a veritable orgy of political penis smashing, followed by a fusillade of apologies. It smothered the Prime Minister's attempts to throw more money at old folks and something or other in the health system."

Read on here.......

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