Rallying to the cause

AUSTRALIA'S right-wing pundits have just retreated from a retreat - where they've been renewing their rancour and replenishing their rage.

Christopher Pearson borrowed the place (a boot camp for bishops) from Cardinal Pell, who, on the first morning, led the assembly in prayer ... "The Lord Monckton is my shepherd / The caps shalt not melt / In pastures green he leadeth us the quiet waters by / Let the lefties walk in death's hot vale, while we will feel the thrill / of Ian Plimer and thyself proving Flannery a dill..."

Intellectually enriching addresses via satellite followed. Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber energised the group with their raging hatred of the Black Muslim Socialist Kenyan American President. As soon as Rush began to rant, local acolyte Alan Jones swooned and needed mouth-to-mouth.

Appropriately, morning tea was sponsored by the Tea Party Movement, the conservative juggernaut that successfully disrupted town-hall meetings across the US during Obama's campaign to reform health care. They announced break-out sessions for shouting lessons and insane, inane placard painting. (Some famous examples were on display - like "NO PUBIC OPTION" and "OMABA IS A MUSLIN". It seems poor spelling goes down a treat with the target demographic.)

Speaking of targets, target practice proved immensely popular, the excited pundits firing automatic weapons provided by the National Rifle Association. Alan Jones bulls-eyed his Al Gore cut-out while Keith Windschuttle mowed down his Robert Manne. Terry McCrann wasn't content to merely shoot his cardboard Keynes. He ate him. Other targets shredded in fusillades included both Malcolms, Fraser and Turnbull.

The repressed memory sessions were packed out with conservative columnists determined to forget all the silly things they'd written about WMDs, the promise of "mission accomplished" in Iraq and the blossoming of democracy in the Middle East. Rave reviews of George W. Bush were entirely forgotten; ditto those calls for further deregulation of the financial sector before the GFC unfolded. Anyone expressing regrets for their neo-con or free market hubris was waterboarded.

One famous writer said she felt like saying sorry to readers for her decade of uncritical tosh about Howard and Bush. Sternly admonished, she was made to memorise Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and two editions of Quadrant. "The 'sorry' word is not in the right-wing vocabulary," she was told.

Lessons were provided in huffing and puffing and other forms of hyperventilation, exaggerated rage being a major ingredient in right-wing punditry. Mere table-thumping will not suffice. Nothing short of paroxysms are permitted.

The immortal names of Menzies, Reagan and Thatcher were chanted as the attendees followed Tony Abbott over hot coals at the climax of the retreat. Hopping and whooping on the glowing rocks proved to be a great bonding experience, second only to handling the femur of St Ayn of Rand, kindly loaned by the Ayn Rand Institute which also possesses two knuckles and an elbow. But the most thrilling event for the conservative commentariat came at the final dinner, after the toasts and speeches. Sarah Palin jumped out of a cake.