A fair way short of a fair go or even a fair fight over at Fairfax, masters of the ineffable

Former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson on Sky News' The Contrarians yesterday:

I'M getting used to the fact that what they do is chase targets. Truth doesn't matter. If you can get at who you want to get at, you just do it at Fairfax. And this week the target was Senator Mark Arbib. And what was Arbib's crime? He went to the American embassy for a couple of dinners. He had some phone calls from some US diplomats and he talked to them. What a shocking thing! Did he say anything at all that revealed a secret? No. Yet you read The Sydney Morning Herald front page, what's he called? Yank in the ranks . . . That story is a disgrace. Even on the ABC, I heard those same words used. There is nothing in the story . . . You get accustomed if you read Fairfax often enough to beat-ups, but this was a real shocker.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The Australian on Tuesday:

WIKILEAKS coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism . . . Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?

Rudd government adviser Troy Bramston on The Contrarians:

THE onus is on Fairfax to produce the documents. They've got these "special cables" that have been leaked to them but no one's seen them. They're not on their website. It's one or two journalists at the Herald and The Age that have got it, but the rest of us can't verify what they actually are.

Political editor Laura Tingle in The Australian Financial Review yesterday:

FOREIGN embassies seek out politicians, journalists and bureaucrats all the time to find out what's going on. That's their job. But there is little difference in how the Americans have tried to snoop their way into Labor over the decades to what the Soviets and others try. The Americans are just not seen as a malevolent influence.

Former Soviet spy Kim Philby is quoted on a plaque unveiled in his honour in Moscow this week:

I LOOK back on my life as given to the service of a cause that I sincerely and passionately believe is right.

Former FSB leader turned Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin goes in to bat for Julian Assange:

WHY was Mr Assange hidden in jail? Is that democracy? As we say in the village: the pot is calling the kettle black.

The Spectator Australia seems to be an Assange fan judging by its cover yesterday:

OUR Julian. At last, Australia punches above its weight.

Until you reach The Spectator Australia's editorial on Page 1:

ASSANGE is no hero.

Assange's Australian roots showing in a message to a disgruntled WikiLeaks staff member (quoted on Wired.com on September 27):

I AM the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, piss off.

Derek Parker reviewing Barrie Cassidy's The Party Thieves in The Spectator Australia yesterday:

HE believes that Labor's near-death experience was due to the leaks that plagued its campaign, with help from the conga line of former leaders spewing bile on each other . . . It is as if Cassidy finds it inherently difficult to give Abbott and his party credit for anything beyond the occasional tactical fillip. The idea that the voters who switched to the Coalition might have actually preferred it does not seem to have occurred to him. Elections are about whether Labor wins or loses, he seems to be saying, and even its self-inflicted wounds are fascinating. All the other players on the political landscape are of secondary importance, background characters along the ALP's path through history . . . But in the end The Party Thieves is not a bad book . . . No, not a bad book, but probably not worth $34.99, either.

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