Rampant hysteria in the media asylum over dinner at Kirribilli

The ordinary Australian has to think on the evidence that to become a media worker one has to be totally deprogrammed of the normal patterns of thinking and making judgements. And only then is one qualified to enter the media asylum where the operations of reason are totally suspended.

This morning on the the Nine Network's Today Show, the viewer was treated to an exchange between two journalists and the hosts (Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic) discussing the deep significance of the Costellos never being invited by the Howards to dinner at Kirribilli House, the Prime Minister's residence in Sydney. How is it possible they asked, their stupefaction bubbling over, that during a working relationship of eleven years that Mr and Mrs Costello were never invited by the Howards? They hate each other, they concluded, answering their own question. And isn't that ever so damaging to the process of government? - and so on and so on and so on ad nauseam. Who is not yet familiar with the driven rhetoric of the Howard-hating media.

There is a non-controversial empirical truth here - which is the demonstration that inductive reasoning will never penetrate the walls of the media asylum. That truth is that there are plenty of instances where business executives have a fruitful working relationship without seeing each other on a personal level. In more than thirty years in business I have had many business friends who I would never entertain inviting into my personal life - with the feeling being mutual. There is absolutely no enmity involved - or even relevant.

I would imagine that a successful media person like Radio 3AW's Neil Mitchell, for example, would have had a similar experience. In my experience it would be very unusual if he had invited all his close business friends home for dinner - and even more unusual if his wife had tolerated it.

The real issue here is the antipathy, contempt, and revulsion that the general media feel towards John Howard who essentially represents and pleads for the ordinary (conservative) Australian with their desires and ambitions. Whatever can be said about the personal relationship between Howard and his deputy Costello, Australia's economy has never been better, and the desired social conditions maintained, albeit in precarious state, despite the destructive campaigns of the PC elites. All this is of no account for the haters in the media. They will continue to present the picture that Prime Minister John Howard is incompetent and that his relationship with Costello is so bad as to make government unworkable. Of course, the Labor Party and the PC class are making the best of it.

As I write this I am listening to Neil Mitchell say that the revelations of the Howard biography, which started all this and whose timing for release has been perfect, have been extremely damaging. It is an issue that won't go away. The media's unmercifully beating up of the issue will of course ensure that it won't go away.

What did that football commentator say? It's deja vu all over again.