Yes, a dickhead. I know, this not news to anyone, but truthfully, before today I’d only ever read one piece of Bolt’s writing, and I’m deeply ashamed to say that I really liked it. It was a column called Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years and it was lovely. Seriously.

I have, however, heard him speak on radio, and it was stomach-churningly awful. He’s an ignorant rabble rouser, cloaked in sanctimony, and he made my teeth itch, so I’ve never bothered to read any more of his stuff.

Then, today, after an unfortunate combination of tweets I fell over a link and ended up on his blog.

Guess what? Andrew Bolt is a dickhead, but he’s not nearly as much of a dickhead as the people who comment on his posts. The worst of Bolt's columns doesn’t give you the gut-churning horror you get by skimming through the comments published underneath them. These people vote. They raise children. They walk around in the world thinking that the things Bolt says are not just right and true, but that many many people agree with him.

Jesus Wept.

Ignoring them or just wishing someone would pack them all up in a box and fire them into the sun might seem like the best option, but I think it’s dangerous. If they’re not constantly and mercilessly held up to ridicule they continue thinking that they are the silent and disenfranchised majority. They’re not. Not by a long shot. Nor is Bolt their plain spoken hero, standing up for the poor, defenceless “real Australians”.

As far as I can tell, his only purpose in life seems to be to make people who watch A Current Affair think they have a valid point.

Following are two of Bolt’s posts from today and some comments chosen at random. Be horrifed, derisive and contemptuous. Loudly. It’s the only option.

Is there a bigger windbag than Robertson?

Even David Marr has had enough:

“LET me start,” said Geoffrey Robertson about 10 minutes into his pitch at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, “by saying this.” The London QC of Sydney extraction was having problems with the clock as he called for the Pope to be arraigned for crimes against humanity. The chairman tried warning gestures, civil glances and banged his glass on an empty Schweppes bottle. Nothing worked. Robertson had things to say and could not be stopped. His adversary, Alan Dershowitz, provoked warm applause with his first words: “What I want to do in the time I’ve been allotted for my remarks.”

Robertson tried the same windbaggery last night on Q&A, treating his fellow panellists (sic) as mere listening posts, and had to be stopped mid-lecture at least twice by Tony Jones.

Brendan O’Neill in Spiked online asks:

HAS there ever been a man as arrogant as Geoffrey Robertson, otherwise known as Mr Kathy Lette, the British-Australian celebrity QC and floppy-haired hero of the Islington-inhabiting, human rightsy crowd? Well, actually the Marxist Tariq Ali, also on Q&A, ran Robertson mighty close.

And the comments...

Andrew I have to laugh that you ask whether there is a bigger windbag than Robertson. While watching the show last night, my wife said about Geoffry Robertson as he droned on that he was as bad as that guy on Insiders who talks over people all the time, meaning you! How about some reflection on how you present?
Rudi
Tue 05 Oct 10 (10:32am)

So they want to put the Pope in the dock? International crimes?

What a sick, sick, deluded world. And then we had the muslim, marxist on the end of the table calling for the Pope to be hung out to dry.

Can the ABC get any sicker, any more warped- any more disgustingly left wing and irrelevant? The place needs to be shut down and start again. I’m with Alan- PRIVATISE THE ABC.
Dave
Tue 05 Oct 10 (06:17am)

“....hero of the Islington-inhabiting, human rightsy crowd?” To be accurate, these types don’t give a rats ass about the human rights of ordinary folks, you won’t find them arguing for christians or conservatives. You’ll only find them crying for the rights of muslim terrorists and when homosexuals are trying to shove their lifestyle in everyone’s face.
MK
Tue 05 Oct 10 (06:24am)

Roberston is doing what jornos call sliming!!! All he say’s is lies. Like the stolen generations, child abuse is a myth and Paul Kelly was way out of line for what he said about the Iraq war.
Paul
Tue 05 Oct 10 (10:30am)

* * *

Back you go, fellers

I’d prefer the next Miss Africa to be held in the appropriate continent: Four men suffered stab wounds as a day of intermittent violence following South Australia’s first Miss Africa pageant erupted into an all-in brawl.

Up to one hundred Africans armed with with knives, tyre levers, clubs, makeshift batons and a bedpost fought a pitched battle in Adelaide’s Bent Street near the Austral Hotel early today. I’m assuming that many of these people were refugees. But I thought the deal was that refugees fled danger, and didn’t import it.

Australia will rue the day that they did not put in place a decent immigration policy. At least under temporary visas,we would have control of the country and the discipline. People who commit crimes in this country should be sent back to where they come from. Evedently they do not appreciate what this country has done for them. And they dont care. And to top it off having a lawyer in charge of the country speaks for itself.
fairdinkum of qld
Tue 05 Oct 10 (07:33am)

It’s all our fault, rich peaceful Australians should embrace the rich culture and dynamic traditions of Sudan, Somalia etc– I mean what Australian city wouldn’t like to become like Khartoum or indeed Mogadishu? When are we going to realise that there is no net benefit/upside for Australia in letting some nationalities into our country so that they can just continue their old ways and attitudes in a far more tolerant/soft society which will only encourage their antisocial behaviour.
Wake up Australia of Pennant Hills
Tue 05 Oct 10 (07:52am)

NIGGERS NIGGERS NIGGERS!!!!!!! BEWARE THE BLACK MAN!!!!!
TJ
Tue 05 Oct 10 (08:23am) [This comment, which may or may not have been an attempt at a joke, got through Bolt’s moderators and stayed on his site until about 4pm. Not one single person commenter decried it. Not one. Bolt really is a dickhead, his followers are whackjobs and his moderators need to be fired. - Eds]

It’s so stupid. If you’re going to leave your home-country because it’s little more than a war zone, don’t bring that crap to your new country.

This also does highlight the inadequacies in our immigration system. There are certain people who need serious help with integration. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t allow African to emigrate because why not let people escape decades of civil war, rape and starvation, but if we are going to let these people live here, we need to recognise that they seem to need additional help regarding law and order, acceptable legal behaviour and trauma coping skills.
Charlotte
Tue 05 Oct 10 (02:26pm)

How can they afford this as refugees? You’d think they’d send any available money to relatives in Africa. Not spend it on a Pageant.
Gary
Tue 05 Oct 10 (03:21pm)

That’s socialist Australia for you. People say, ‘If we don’t stop this it will be too late for our country.’ It is ALREADY too late. Our society has been ruined by the Left. Yes, this happened under Howard as much as it is happening under Rudd/Gillard and as much as it happened under that anglophobic megalomaniac Keating. Howard, Abbott and the coalition are too gutless to do anything about it. Howard should have renounced the outdated refugee convention and, instead of importing violent people to our country, should have put humanitarian resources into refugee camps in countries bordering trouble spots. But refugees and illegals are just the signature issue for the broader question of who we allow to come to this country. To vandalise our society the Left have brought in the wetched refuse from all over the world. We should have had a ‘class’ based immigration system. But it is too late now. I know some leftists who say, ‘Oh, but it only takes a generation for them to integrate.’ This is not necessarily true, but, even if it were, someone would still have to pay the price for all of the violence, gangs and social decay that each new intake brings with it. Naturally, it won’t be the latte sitting tossers at Potts Point; it will be the people in the western suburbs for whom life is a tough enough battle as it is. It proves that Labor does not give a damn about low-income workers. They dump hundreds of thousands of violent people into their suburbs turning them into ghettos. It is already too late for this country, not that there is anyone who has the guts to do something about it.
Barry of Canberra
Mon 04 Oct 10 (07:09pm)

it’s never the latte sipping tossers who have to pay the price and you are right, it’s too late. Even if an Abbott wanted to do something about it, i guarantee he would lose at the next election. Most of us have swallowed this multi-culti BS and will only learn when it’s us getting the tripe beaten out of us by some 3rd-world savage.

“Hence, perhaps, it is no longer our choice as a supposed sovereign nation.”

Mate, we have no choice in most things in Australia, perhaps it was when we gave up our guns or when we refused to take responsibility for our health that we lost our freedom, either way, none of us are really free, we just don’t know it.
MK
Tue 05 Oct 10 (06:52am)

I would like to have my good and decent Australia back, instead of the multi-culti third world hell-hole it has become in some parts. Why we have Africans here beats me, as there is plenty of room in Africa for them.

I suppose the UNHCR turned up with them on the list, and our Canberra bureaucrats said ‘yes’, and of course they were allowed in but settled well away from Canberra. After all we cannot have our dear residents of the ACT see the failing results of their policies. That would never do.
Old Bill
Mon 04 Oct 10 (11:42pm)

I am not a bleeding heart, but I believe that we should have some refugee intake. You might ask how many, but that’s a separate question. Earlier waves of refugees also had problems. Recall the 1960 kidnap/murder of 8-year-old Graeme Thorne, committed by a Hungarian refugee. A terrible crime, but did it mean we should never accept another Hungarian? Most of them integrated pretty well. It’s the unfortunate nature of every group of people (even Wall St bankers and members of the House of Lords), that some of them are stupid or evil, or both. Yes, we don’t want Somali and Sudanese gang-fights. But how much of this is a refugee problem, and how much is it a police problem? In 1960, police could tell a gang of toughs (refugees or locals) to go home and calm down, otherwise they’d get a clip on the ear, or a night in the cells. Can’t do that now. Camera-phones everywhere, police don’t dare move beyond the official procedure.
pytlozvejk of north fitzroy
Mon 04 Oct 10 (09:11pm)

+ 5

+ 1