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the usual suspects .....

the usual suspects .....

Opposition finance minister Andrew Robb, climate contrarian Ian Plimer and Stolen Generations sceptic Keith Windshuttle have rallied behind Andrew Bolt's freedom of speech in a full-page advertisement published in The Australian today.

The advertisement is the initiative of the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs think tank, which called for donations after Bolt was found guilty of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act last Wednesday.

The case concerned a 2009 article in which Bolt claimed that nine fair-skinned Aborigines had played up being black for career advancement.

Liberal MPs Mathias Cormann, Jamie Briggs and Mitch Fifield are among the 1261 donors to the IPA's campaign, as are Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger and former NSW Liberal leader Peter Coleman.

"We were surprised by the overwhelming response," John Roskam, executive director of the IPA, told The Power Index this morning. "We had to stop accepting donations...they just kept coming in."

Roskam said most of the $100,000 raised was spent on today's ad, but the institute has some money left over to publish a new book on freedom of speech.

The advertisement reads: "Freedom of speech is fundamental to a free society. The Andrew Bolt case shows freedom of speech in Australia is under threat. It is alarming that in 2011 someone can be taken to court for expressing an opinion."

"We support freedom of speech for Andrew Bolt and every Australian."

This statement is followed by a list of names who donated to the campaign.

Some notable omissions are union boss Paul Howes, who has spoken out in support of Bolt's right to offend, and mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who is a big fan of the columnist's work.

As for Bolt, named The Power Index's most influential Megaphone last month, he didn't donate to the campaign. But he has written another fiery column, published in News Limited tabloids today, about the affair.

He writes that the "Leftist 'elite' media" have turned him into "a make-believe monster so cartoonish that no one of sense could possibly believe it".

"I wonder, if sarcasm, mockery and errors are crimes, how many dozens of the journalists writing about me this past week should be in the dock, too?"

Conservative Heavyweights Rally Behind Bolt

 

sarcasm, mockery and errors....

Ah... Andrew, just grow up..

the ritewingnut hypocrybabies...

From Jason Wilson at Unleashed

Nothing is more likely to be hypocritical than invocations of the right to freedom of speech.

Tony Abbott called it a "sacred principle" the other day when he was talking about Justice Bromberg's decision that Andrew Bolt had breached the Racial Discrimination Act.

But most will recall Abbott, Peter Costello and their partners successfully suing Random House and Bob Ellis for defamation in 1999, which led to damages of $277,500 being awarded and the pulping of Ellis's book Goodbye Jerusalem.

Like most, Abbott's support for freedom of speech would appear to extend to the point where he is personally offended, or when he considers something to have been written in error about him.

Abbott's not alone among politicians in holding to a double standard.

John Howard once celebrated Pauline Hanson's maiden speech to parliament as ushering in a "new era of free speech", but he probably did more than any other prime minister to curtail such freedoms with anti-terror and sedition laws.

The News Limited journalists who have been shrieking most loudly about the Bolt judgement were conspicuously silent when the editor-in-chief of The Australian threatened my University of Canberra colleague Julie Posetti with defamation proceedings.

And it was a treat to see Miranda Devine's column on the Daily Telegraph's opinion page last week vociferously defending Bolt's rights, when at least one of her senior colleagues on that paper is known to spray around legal threats and to gleefully collect defamation settlements.

Recently, the same talkback hosts who have spent the past week frothing about Bolt's rights were calling for the deportation or worse of Man Monis, the self-styled religious leader who was allegedly writing offensive letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3300040.html

the opportunistic narcissist …..

Conservative columnist Andrew Bolt is an opportunist who lacks emotional intelligence, according to a new profile published in The Monthly today.

Feminist and author Anne Summers scored a coup by tracking down and interviewing a former fiancée of Bolt, whom he lived with for six years.

"Whilst Andrew might have a high IQ, his EQ (emotional intelligence) is obviously underdeveloped," the ex-fiancee, who asked to remain anonymous, told Summers. "He appears to be blind to the impact that his actions have on others and then takes it personally when they respond."

The fiancée, a former belly dancer, now works as a business consultant and executive coach.

Summers' profile also suggests that Bolt's firebrand persona is largely a construct, which he created to fill a gap in the market for strident right-wing opinion.

''In 2006, through a third party, Andrew Bolt sought guidance from [Fox Television chairman] Roger Ailes on how he could replicate the Fox News model Down Under" she writes. "'He saw the political power that comes from right-wing ranting,' says a colleague of Bolt's, 'and he appointed himself to do it.'''

Summers also reveals that Bolt's brother, Richard, is on the board of the Gillard government's Australian Centre for Renewable Energy.

The article was completed before last week's Federal Court ruling that Bolt had breached the Racial Discrimination Act in 2009.

Andrew Bolt's Belly-Dancer Fiancee Speaks Out In New Profile