The Quadrant article in full: The Manchester Bomber’s ABC Pals
Junketeering warmist Lawrence Krauss last night explained on Q&A why refrigerators are more dangerous than Islamic terror, an obscene absurdity compere Tony Jones allowed to go unchallenged. That was last night. This morning, with nary a fridge in sight, the slaughter in Manchester
Did you endure Q&A, stick with Monday’s show until near the very end? It’s always difficult, what with Tony Jones’ tactical interruptions and the inevitable stacking of panel and audience – although last night’s presentation didn’t even bother with the pretense of ‘balance’. Unless you count The Australian’s Niki Savva as a PR operative for Malcolm Turnbull, which you should, every invited voice was a smug simper straight from the green-left heart of ABC luvviedom: the imminent peril of climate change, Australia’s vile racism, nuclear war, the cretinous absurdity of religious belief, Donald Trump as an evil four-year-old, puppetmaster Putin and his White House marionette ….
Even by Q&A’s standards it was a full-court press of approved opinions, which is why Jones needed to interrupt only a handful of times. With no conservative on the panel, the compere could relax, dig the vibe, bask in likeminded company, allow the flow of virtuous clichés to proceed without the disruptions he brings to bear whenever an ideologically unsound guest is poised to make a salient point.
So cosy was Q&A‘s groupthink gathering that, with just a few minutes to go, compere and guests felt emboldened to address Islamic terror without the de rigeur qualifications that customarily follow every latest scraping of body parts off footpaths and buses — or, this very morning, mopping the blood and flesh off the concourse of a Manchester concert venue where at least 19 blameless humans have been shredded. According to preliminary reports many of the victims were teenage girls no older than Aisha, Mohammad’s beloved child bride.
Jones would have needed to stick his bib in had there been a conservative on hand, someone prepared to hazard the audience’s jeers by saying, ‘Look, as a political system dressed as a religion, Islam blows up infidels because, one way or another – breeding or bombs – its adherents are fully confident their system will subsume ours.” Instead, untroubled by the annoyance of a naysaying voice, the panel did what luvvies do best: traded the noxious nostrums that are their craven stock-in-trade, the rationales and “explanations” that demonstrate, at least to their own satisfaction, why they are so much sharper than those who regard dismembered 13-year-olds as cause for concern.
Here’s the Guardian’s Mona Chalabi. If you can stomach the video, she flings her faux pearls before the Islamophobes and swinish hoi polloi at the show’s 56-minute mark (emphasis added):
…actually, the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, if you want to view it in terms of number of dead bodies, which, as awful as it sounds, is the way to kind of make sense of some threat, actually, really, isn’t that present…
… the chance of being killed by a foreign-born terrorist is one in 3.6 million … but all of our perception of threat has been distorted because of the way that risk is presented to us by politicians.
A smug stick insect and tireless self-promoter, fellow guest Lawrence Krauss, the warmist shill who has the gall to present himself as a man of science, couldn’t resist the temptation to demonstrate a nuanced acuity. Below are his actual words, reproduced verbatim. Try not to throw up.
You’re more likely to be killed by a refrigerator, in the United States, falling on you.
If you need to read this loathsome creature’s glib sophistry once more, just to grasp the full breadth of its breathtaking brazenness, brace yourself and do so.
Tumbling refrigerators are a bigger hazard than Islamic terrorism? God Almighty but that Krauss is a filthy liar.
What, Kelvinators killed more people than died in San Bernadino, where a Muslim couple turned on workmates who had just thrown them a baby shower, gunning them down at their desks?
What, falling Frigidaires claimed more lives than a Muslim gunman methodically executing homosexuals in an Orlando nightclub?
This was a moment when Jones really should have interrupted, asked Krauss if he lies about everything, not just when reality and circumstance intrude on favoured pieties.
But of course Jones was silent. It’s a monstrously absurd and obscene self-evident untruth to claim that refrigerators are more dangerous than terrorists, but it fits with the approved narrative, so not a peep from the man who is paid by the national broadcaster to promote fair, free, frank and factual debate on matters of national importance.
This morning, mere hours after Jones’ guests pocketed their ABC taxi vouchers and repaired to hotel rooms paid for with taxpayer dollars processed through the Sydney Writers Festival, mere children were torn to pieces on the other side of the world.
Life isn’t fair and death less so. What if that blast had detonated in an Ultimo TV studio? Unlike those young girls in Manchester, their lives snuffed out before they could begin, none of the panel’s likely casualties would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty.
Mind you, as Krauss felt his body being penetrated by the Prophet’s shrapnel of nuts, bolts and nails, those goitered eyes might in their last glimmering have caught a glimpse of vindication.
A blast of Manchester dimensions must surely knock over the studio’s lunchroom refrigerator. Allah only knows how many innocent lives that shocking incident might claim.
And the response: ABC boss Michelle Guthrie demands apology from Quadrant. This is the full story from The Oz.
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has blasted Quadrant for its “sick and unhinged” comments about the ABC after an opinion piece suggested it would have been better off if the Manchester terrorist attack took place in the public broadcaster’s Sydney headquarters.
Senator Fifield told a budget estimates hearing that as the minister responsible for the ABC he wanted to make it clear the article “constitutes a new low in Australian public debate”.
CHRIS KENNY: Quadrant went too far in wishing violence upon the ABC. But that does not excuse the national broadcaster of its greatest failing.
ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie has demanded an apology and the removal of the article from the Quadrant website saying how it would have been better if the Manchester bombing took place in the Q&A studio.
“The managing director of the ABC has written to the editor of Quadrant, John O’Sullivan and the editor of Quadrant online, Roger Franklin, making clear her views on behalf of the organisation,” Senator Fifield said. “And in the letter to Quadrant she says and I quote “I ask that this letter be posted prominently on the Quadrant website, but I also ask that the article, which continues to contain entirely inappropriate comments about possible bombings at the ABC be removed and apologised for.”
“I am certain that I speak on behalf of all my colleagues here at the Committee in condemning what Quadrant has posted online. We can all disagree with what particular media outlets do and say. That is appropriate in a democracy. But the comments by Quadrant are sick and unhinged.”
In an opinion piece posted on the conservative publication’s website last night, online editor Roger Franklin wrote “had there been a shred of justice’’ the Manchester bomber would have blown up Monday’s night’s Q&A panel.
“This morning, mere hours after (host Tony) Jones’ guests pocketed their ABC taxi vouchers and repaired to hotel rooms paid for with taxpayer dollars processed through the Sydney Writers’ Festival, mere children were torn to pieces on the other side of the world,” Franklin wrote.
“Life isn’t fair and death less so. Had there been a shred of justice, that blast would have detonated in an Ultimo TV studio. Unlike those young girls in Manchester, their lives snuffed out before they could begin, none of the panel’s likely casualties would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty.’’
An amended version of the paragraph now appears on the website saying: “Life isn’t fair and death less so. What if that blast had detonated in an Ultimo TV studio? …’’
In a statement this morning, Ms Guthire condemned Quadrant describing the article as “vicious and offensive’’.
“Quadrant promotes itself as ‘the leading general intellectual journal of ideas’. Those words ring hollow in the wake of last night’s vicious and offensive attack on the ABC, its staff and its program guests,’’ said Ms Guthrie.
“To take issue with our programming and our content is one thing. But to express the wish that, if there were any justice, the horrific terrorist bombing in Manchester would have taken place in the ABC’s Ultimo studio and killed those assembled there is a new low in Australian public debate.’’
Ms Guthrie said Franklin’s “subsequent attempt to make amends by changing some of the wording (without acknowledging or apologising for the original article) has done little to undo the damage’’.
“The article continues to state that if a blast occurred in one of our studios, none of the likely casualties ‘would have represented the slightest reduction in humanity’s intelligence, decency, empathy or honesty’.
“Like many others, I am appalled at your willingness to turn an act of terrorism in the United Kingdom into a means of making a political point against those you disagree with. One of the immediate results of this behaviour is that while our staff both here and in Manchester were working long hours to provide extensive coverage of this unfolding tragedy, we were also forced to reassure worried staff who had read your article and call in our own security experts to assess any possible impact flowing from your inflammatory words.
“I ask that this response be posted prominently on the Quadrant website, and I also ask that the article, which continues to contain entirely inappropriate comments about possible bombings at the ABC, be removed and apologised for.’’
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