Rex in the City

Sometimes when I need something to get the mind ticking over, before tackling some complex intellectual activity like say three dimensional cryptic crosswords or boning up on the details of the US Free Trade Agreement, I like to limber up, stretch the mind with a little bit of Gerard Henderson.

There’s a fine line between wisdom and senility and Mr Henderson, whose been doing a laudable tightrope walk for the past few years is now demonstrating clear clinical signs of the latter.

In today’s stunted Gerard, Mr. Henderson savages the Whitlam government as though it was only yesterday. Today, Gerard takes issue with the Whitlam ALP view on the communists of Indochina, who were big news in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. The ones that eventually ended up in power in Vietnam and Cambodia. Remember them?

Fancy believing that those dreadful commies could possibly have been any good, lectures Gerard. Yet according to Gerard, the Whitlamites spun the lie that that they, the Commies, were knights in shining armour saving their people from something that is not important enough to remember. Or perhaps he just plain forgets.

It is Whitlam’s fault, and the fault of all those other ALP traitors like Cairns and Uren that Pol-Pot murdered millions. It’s Whitlam’s fault that Vietnam imprisoned 1 Million of their people.

Careful not to mention the war, thoroughly modern Gerard manages to remove his head from the vice-like grip of the time demons, brings the reader back to the present day, and reminds us that it is the Vietnamese refugees who, in coming to Australia, are pointing out the ongoing horror that is Indochinese communism.

Yes Mr. Henderson. The communists are coming. We know. Why don’t you let us deal with them and we’ll just tuck you into bed with a nice cup of tea and a Bex. There there. Good night Mr. Henderson.