About

Glen Bartholomew:

It was an epic weekend of football festivities that saw the hopes of long suffering St Kilda fans tragically dashed once more. The Saints were hanging in, clinging to the lead but you always felt that a Geelong run was imminent. St Kilda did well to hold them to the tight margin. A great arm wrestle, a close game, a deserving winner - what more do you want ?

Now what does everyone do ?? The post season depression/withdrawal begins ( and a lot more household jobs get done on the weekends ).

There’s always the NRL grand final this weekend. Whose idea was this late start on Sunday afternoon anyway? Is a Saturday afternoon Grand Final so terrible ? Seemed to work remarkably well for the AFL.
I know there’s a public holiday in NSW on Monday but let’s face it - it’s all about television, ratings and advertising bucks. Stupid to wait around all weekend for the biggest game of the year. Do love the fact that Melbourne is home to the decade’s most successful rugby league team - they’ve won more games than anyone else and are contesting their 4th straight Grand Final. Even better - they play a great brand of football that you can’t help but admire. I wonder whether the big dust storm that hit Sydney from the west last week was an omen. Go the Storm !

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In media news, Reuters reports :
William Safire, the former speechwriter for Richard Nixon who won a Pulitzer Prize for columns on politics and language for The New York Times, has died aged 79.

Known for his conservative voice on The Times’ mostly liberal opinion pages, Safire received his Pulitzer for commentary in 1978.

In 1979, he began writing the newspaper’s On Language column, in which he examined the origins of words and phrases and their proper usage.

He served for a decade on the board that awards the Pulitzer, and retired from his twice-weekly political column in 2005.

Safire’s last column for the newspaper appeared just two weeks ago.

He joined the Nixon White House speechwriting team in 1968, before joining The Times in 1973.

He was credited with coining the phrases “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hysterical hypochondriacs of history,” used by then-Vice President Spiro Agnew to describe the U.S. media.
Safire was married and had two children.

He wrote several novels including the bestseller “Full Disclosure,” as well as several nonfiction books on politics and language.

A Manhattan native, he was popular even with readers who took issue with his conservative political views in part because he enthusiastically engaged them and solicited contributions and input on the origins and foibles of modern language.
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Marius Benson:

Paul Fletcher is the newest name in federal politics.

He is now two days into a public life which began with the fairly private process of being pre-selected as the Liberal Party’s candidate for that bluest of blue ribbon seats, Bradfield - the northern Sydney seat being vacated by the former Liberal leader, Brendan Nelson.

Throughout the pre-selection process candidates are warned that they are involved in an internal party procedure and should remain publicly silent, on pain of being tossed out.

That restriction is one that some candidates bridle against, impatient to get their views out to a wider world. Others, particularly some Liberal Party veterans like Bronwyn Bishop and Philip Ruddock, seem to find comfort in the inability to join in public debate on whether the time has come for them to declare an end to their long political careers.

But, at 45, Paul Fletcher is at the beginning of a political life and he is already being pointed to as evidence of a healthy future for the Liberal Party - and quite possibly a future leader.

Bradfield is the sort of seat that’s expected to produce leaders for the Liberals, or at least frontbenchers. And in political circles you can start a reasonably lively discussion by suggesting that the next Liberal Prime Minister is among those who are now quite junior in parliamentary ranks or even just entering.

Last week three Liberals - Malcolm Turnbull, Ian MacFarlane and Peter Costello - pointed out that it is likely they will lose the next election.

This is a statement of the obvious based on history and the polls - but stating the obvious is not something politicians always do, particularly if the perceived truth does not suit their political purpose.

In the year leading up to John Howard’s defeat there was no such open pessimism.

It lends weight to the view that the Coalition is in for a long-term period of re-building. A lot of the hard work in that process will be taken on by the new chums, Paul Fletcher among them.

And if the bookies were offering good odds on who will be the next Liberal Prime Minister, you could do worse than toss a few dollars on P.Fletcher MP as a prospect for somewhere around 2019.