News of peace fails to reach the troops still fighting each other in the trenches

Peace in our time. Peter Hartcher in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday:

SO Rudd will now join the wider Labor campaign effort. This will put an end to the sub-plot of Rudd the rat, and allow Gillard to get back on message. The Rudd distraction seems to be solving itself.

Not quite. Nicola Berkovic and Patricia Karvelas on Saturday in The Weekend Australian:

JULIA Gillard has been accused of "scandalous" disregard for national security. The revelations are the latest in a string of damaging leaks to hit the Prime Minister and come as senior Labor ministers concede that animosity between her and Kevin Rudd is "killing" its election campaign and that it is not being managed as it should.

God bothering. Gillard on Saturday:

I WOULD say to Kevin and his family we are all hoping, wishing, praying for a speedy recovery.

Gillard on ABC 774 on June 29:

JON Faine: Do you believe in God?

Gillard: No, I don't Jon, I'm not a religious person. I am not going to pretend a faith I don't feel.

Fight Club. Gillard on Saturday:

WE'RE in a fight. I'm in the fight of my life, I understand that and I am going to keep fighting every day of this election campaign.

Kim Beazley on Radio National Breakfast, November 9, 2001:

I'M a fighter and I'm a fighter until 6 o'clock tomorrow evening. And I'm not an analyst and I'm still not an analyst, and I've said that repeatedly. All I can tell you, Cathy, is that we're fighting very, very hard to get our messages through.

Michael Kroger and Paul Howes fight on Friday on Seven's Sunrise:

KROGER: Rudd will be leaking against Gillard and the Labor government for years. You cannot run a country with its dysfunctionality. No- one should think it is going to stop.

Howes: People should not believe the spin from people like Michael Kroger. I want to talk about issues but Michael wants to talk about gossip.

Fifteen hours later on ABC1's Lateline:

KROGER: Wake up, son: everybody in the whole country is talking about what is going on. Now I'm not gonna use tonight your relatively young and youthful inexperience against you . . .

Howes: Well, grandad. Just have a think about the first term of the Howard government.

Kroger: You weren't born then.

Howes: I was born. Don't be so ridiculous.

Underdog? Tony Abbott on Saturday:

LOOK, polls go up and down and I think I am very much the underdog in this election campaign.

Mark Latham explains on February 10, 2004:

WELL, all these polls, I take them with a grain of salt. They come and go. We're still very much the underdog .

John Howard, July 21, 1995:

WE are still very much the underdog at the next federal election.

Everything is going swimmingly for the government, apparently. Except for one thing. Jonathan Holmes on The Drum yesterday:

The Australian's front page is a brutal weapon. It was used to expose the shambles of the insulation program. It was used mercilessly to paint the stimulus spending on schools as a wasteful shambles. And now it is being used, shamelessly, to help win an election for the Coalition. When a media company as dominant as News Ltd permits the news values of its national broadsheet to become overwhelmed by a partisan political agenda, that amounts to an abuse of power. What do you think?

Reader John responds:

My feeling Jonathan is that I do not mind if the ABC dishes out as much left-wing propaganda as it likes -- as long people that want to listen to it pay for it -- like I pay for Foxtel.

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