Well I never! I sent a lovely email to Chris Mitchell the editor-in-chief of The Australian. And guess what? The dirty stinker didn't reply. Now that Irish sot Gerry Jackson is rolling about the office floor cackling something about me being a complete twit for thinking Mitchell was genuinely concerned about the lies many of his journalists write. What's more, the bolshie rotter even said I was unemployable!

I'd have given Jackson a good what-for if I hadn't been hanging on to a couple of glasses of Cabernet Shiraz — and a damned good vintage it was too. Anyhow, I'm not going to let an intellectual thug like Jackson get away with belittling the de Champion name, I can tell you. What Jackson doesn't know is that Horace "Hackers"Hacker, an old chum from Grammar, fixed me up with my own super-duper email address. This means I will now be able to communicate with people of distinction, and in the strictest confidence.

This email gumph is very important because that swine Jackson intercepted my email to that cad Mitchell (take it from me, Mitchell will never get into our Club) and threatened to publish it. That really got my gander up, I can tell you. It was then I had a brilliant idea. (Stop that laughing out there!) Why don't I publish my own correspondence? So I beat Jackson to the draw, so to speak, with my email to Mitchell. As you can see for yourselves, it is a splendid missive.

Mr Chris Mitchell
The Australian
Editor-in-Chief
2 Holt Street
Surry Hills, NSW 2010
Fax: (02) 9288 2250
editor@theaustralian.com.au

I say, Mr Mitchell, I was awfully glad you took on those bolshie rotters at MediaWatch. They really are bloody shower and they certainly need watching. Fancy them trying to smear ol' Albrechtson. A damned disgrace is what I call it. As a battle-scarred war correspondent from the Iraq campaign (by the way, did I tell you how I single-handedly took on three of Saddam's Republican Guard divisions?) I feel I can talk to you as one professional to another, so to speak, and that you will treat my concerns with the deepest respect.

It's that damnable Geoff Elliott, the wallah who calls himself your Washington correspondent. Did you know he's been passing off the Democrats' talking points as his own work? Of course not! If you'd known you'd have given the bolshie sneak a good thrashing. As an aside, I told Billy Baskers, an ol' school chum, that I was going to write you about that Elliot cad. Guess what? He called you a bounder and said you'd never do anything about him. Well, I didn't stand for that, I can tell you. I said that anyone who stood up to those commie sods at the ABC has to be a jolly decent sort and should be a member of our club.

Anyhow, where was I! Ah yes, that rotten bounder Elliot. Well never let it be said that a de Champion ever stabbed anyone in the back, not like that Tim Blair bloke. We Champions always put our cards on the table. (Unfortunately Uncle Harry was something of an exception. But that's another story). May I draw your attention to item one. (I saw all the Perry Mason shows, you know). In Now or never for Bush judges, 16 May, Elliot claimed that it "Usually it takes 60 votes to end a filibuster"with respect to President Bush's nominee. Well I can tell you that that's a whopping fib with not a word of truth in it.

Elliot also claimed that "killing it off [meaning the filibuster] is a dramatic blow to the tradition of the Senate”. This is another outrageous fib. In fact the Democrats' filibuster is unprecedented, violates tradition and is probably unconstitutional to boot. As the Washington Times said:

Indeed, throughout the entire history of the U.S. Senate, neither the minority-party members in that chamber nor senators of the party that did not occupy the White House had ever before engaged in such a coordinated, protracted filibustering campaign to frequently deny up-or-down votes for one judicial nominee after another.

No one can claim that Elliot made a mistake because in his Congress in crisis over judge delay, 11 May, he stated that the Democrats have a right to filibuster Bush's nominees. But Elliot ignored the fact that not only is this right far from clear it has never before even been exercised in the entire history of the Senate. Since the founding of the Senate a simple majority on the floor was all that was needed to confirm a judicial nominee. In any case, if this kerfuffle is really all about rights and tradition, as Elliot would have us believe, why is it that back in 1995 Democratic Senators Kennedy, Kerry, Bingaman, Lautenberg, Sarbanes, Boxer, Lieberman, Harkin and Feingold voted to abolish the filibuster?

Ol' Bunny's not stupid, you know. Just because I had to be forced fed at Taylors College it doesn't mean I can't put two and two together, particularly when it comes to the Democrats' talking points regarding Bush's nominees. I mean to say, ol' chap, if Elliot was a sincere and honest journalist, like us hardened veterans of the Iraq War, (by the way, did I tell you about the time I took out 5 of Saddam's Republican Guard divisions?) he wouldn't have left out any of this info, would he?

Anyhow, to prove my point I did a little research of my own. Elliot insinuates that the Democrats are being fair because "…204 other judicial nominees, including 35 to the federal appeals court, were approved in the last Congress”. But this so-called observation is actually another Democratic Party talking point designed to mislead the pubic. What that blighter Elliot concealed is that all of the filibustered nominations were destined for the circuit courts of appeal. Even someone as dense as me understands that this is a deceitful way of filibustering future Supreme Court nominees. And Senator Harry Reid has even publicly admitted this. So why didn't Elliot report it?

That's not the only thing Elliot left out. For instance, the post-war confirmation rate for Circuit Court nominees is as follows: Truman 100 per cent, Eisenhower 92.3 per cent, Kennedy 77 per cent, Johnson 96 per cent, Nixon 87 per cent, Ford 81 per cent, Carter 100 per cent, Reagan 95 per cent, Bush 41 95 per cent, Clinton 86.4 per cent and George W. Bush 53 per cent.

Elliot is not just knocking Bush on judges. He dug up Cannistraro to fault US intelligence for failing to capture Zarqawi (US ‘no good' at cell infiltration, 9 May). I know from my own experience as a CIA agent that all is not well with the agency. But any so-called journalist who uses Cannistraro as a source is either lazy or plain anti-Bush. This is the man who accused Michael Ledeen of manufacturing the Niger uranium documents. Well I ask you?

And needless to say, Elliot made no mention of intelligence failures during the Clinton presidency or Clinton's refusal to take bin Laden into custody when the Sudan offered him up. Then in Spy chief labels Bolton a bully but he's still UN-bound, 14 April, Elliot smeared John Bolton as a bully, using Carl Ford as his source, neglecting to point out that Ford admitted that he had not personally witnessed any bullying by Mr Bolton.

Well I can tell you that that Ford chappie is spouting a lot of rot. I used to be captain of the school bully team so I know quite a lot about bullying, just ask that little commie rotter Stinky Snotgrass if I don't. Furthermore, if Elliot really thought the bullying accusation merited reporting why didn't he report Harry Reid and Teddy Kennedy's bullying antics. They're so bad they would have been thrown out of our school bully team, I can tell you.

What's more, being a life-long member of the Club I can smell any snivelling backstabber from five miles away, which was how I figured Ford. Guess what? I was spot on with that sleazy character. If he was, as he claimed, a "loyal Republican"why did he donate to the Democrats and why did he work for Senator John Glenn? Gary Jarmin, a Washington lobbyist who knows Ford, said of him:

To the best of my recollection, Carl always considered himself a Democrat. If he is now a self-described loyal Republican then he must have had a fairly recent conversion”.

I bet you didn't know that Fulton Armstrong, the joker ol' Bolton was supposed to have shouted at, has a reputation for producing shoddy intelligence work. Even worse, did you know he harbours pro-Castro views? Of course you didn't. That's because the fearless Elliot didn't tell you. And what was Elliot doing referring to James Dobson the evangelist? Bunny's no fool, you know. Elliot was insinuating that the sinister forces of Christian fundamentalism were at work. What about the sinister forces of the left that targeted Bolton, as well as Tom DeLay, for political destruction? How come Elliot missed that one?

I'll have to close now. However, before I do just a couple of observations: I was very impressed with your editorial in which you quoted Taranto as saying that "one cannot credit Media Watch with acting in good faith". Let's be honest about this, just between us, the same goes for most of your reporters.

Only the other week that awful slag Rosemary Neill accused Pope Benedict XVI of being a mass murderer. And last year the equally awful Peter Wilson accused those fine Yankee Doodle Dandies of murdering journalists in Baghdad. (For some strange reason Tim Blair ran away from that story). I mean to say, this kind of bolshie rot is going on all the time. Fortunately I have the solution — ME. I am offering my humble services to you for a modest sum. After all, if that Arthur Chrenkoff can get paid for reproducing what others have already published, why can't I. Not only was I captain of the school rugby team I was also a champion cribber. And I never stuffed up.

Knowing you to be a man of inestimable moral courage, (talking about courage, did I mention how I single-handedly captured Baghdad Airport before being overwhelmed by 12 of Saddam's Republican Guard divisions?), unequalled ethics and peerless rectitude, I have no doubt you will accept my offer in the same selfless spirit that inspired it.

Toodleloo for now

Bunny Champers
(Albert Bartholomew de Champion)
Brookes' correspondent at large

PS

These articles are genuine and were written by me while I was based in Iraq during the war. They are unadorned accounts of my heroic exploits. Anyhow, they are about as true as anything most of your journalists have ever written

Bunny's Baghdad adventure and reporters on the take

Bunny's escape from Baghdad and his heroic return to Melbourne

Bunny Champers: media corruption and the Iraq war

PSS.

Please don't tell that Irish scumbag Gerry Jackson who works at Brookes that I wrote you. He's made my life miserable since he escaped from detox.

PSSS.