A despicable prick

Andrew Bolt (and not for the first time).

When scanning the news, I usually find it pretty easy to pick the stories that Bolt is going to target on his blog. Anything about some place having cold weather or rain, for instance. Muslims objecting to pretty much anything. Kevin Rudd speaking. Peter Costello scratching his arse. Those sorts of things have become pretty easy to pick.

But when I read about a baby’s body being found near Shepparton, I have to admit that it didn’t even enter my mind that Bolt would put it to use the way that he did:

In the hysteria to “save” Earth from a warming that’s actually halted, we ignore a true and growing threat to children.

Note also that the URL of his blog entry shows the original title he gave it – “but the bag showed a conscience” – before someone thought better of it.

Yes – once again, Andrew Bolt takes a tragic death and uses it to grind his political axe.

Now, we can analyse Bolt’s “metaphor” and point out all the ways it doesn’t make sense and Bolt contradicts his other claims. Green bags are largely about reducing the use of non-biodegradable, disposable plastic bags – nothing to do with global warming. When actually confronted on his arguments about global warming, Bolt claims that he is not making definitive claims (”This recent cooling doesn’t disprove the theory that man is warming the world. Ten years is too short to be sure of a trend.”) and yet now he talks about “hysteria” and “a warming that’s actually halted”, exposing himself as a denialist in sceptic’s clothing. We don’t know how this infant died yet, so it is not even clear what this “true and growing threat” Bolt proposes is. Et cetera.

But the real problem is not in Bolt’s arguments. It is the fact that he would even contemplate using tragedy in this way. This time, he didn’t even wait to have the cover of accusing someone else of doing the same thing. The fact is that Andrew Bolt, upon hearing of a horrifying and tragic discovery and a death that clearly needs to be investigated, saw it as an opportunity. And he used it to produce exactly what he wanted – publicity and negative reaction, allowing him to identify the hateful enemy:

UPDATE

I reply to the foam-flecked greens, some of whose most violently abusve comments have been snipped by moderators, in an answer to a courteous reader below.

About the only surprise in this is that he used the word “greens” instead of “Leftists”. Of course, everyone who disagrees with Bolt falls into the category of “teh Enemy”, so he can apply whichever supposedly derogatory name he likes.

In the comments, Bolt’s supporters spring to his defence – praising the clarity of his “metaphor”, validating his point about the tragic inattention to the horrible treatment of children in modern society (especially by those who love trees more than babies), chastising the lefties who are flooding the blog with responses of disagreement and thereby stifling debate. It will be debated, but I don’t think anyone’s opinion will move from their initial, visceral reaction to what Andrew Bolt has done.

Andrew Bolt uses tragedy for political gain.

ELSEWHERE: The Blair/Bolt Watch Project has plenty to say about this new low water mark in Bolt’s “journalistic” career. Rex Ringschott at Club Troppo finds the irony in Bolt’s criticism of over-focus on global warming while his blog largely focuses on, … um, something to do with the world’s temperature. cosmicjester at The Bastard Son challenges Andrew to name 10 kids who died because their parents were more concerned with global warming.

UPDATE: More reactions from Private Tom and Nexus 6 (which includes a link to Crikey’s First Dog on the Moon cartoon). I also notice that Bolt is now throwing brief mentions of his same point about teh Left and teh greens and teh zealots ignoring the kids – he obviously likes the reaction his first piece on the topic drew and is trying to keep the conflict burning – it’s all about teh web site traffic and teh profile as an agenda-setter for Andrew, after all.