Bile

Here's an astonishing bit of invective from Rocky media critic Michael Tracey in this morning's paper. It reads like a second-rate partisan blog post.

Murdoch symbol of neo-con threat:

Who is the greater threat to Western democracy, Osama bin Laden or Rupert Murdoch? Let me suggest that while bin Laden is manifestly a deeply dangerous psychopath, in terms of the functioning of democracies where rational, informed publics elect their leaders, Murdoch is far more dangerous. He is extraordinarily gifted in a nasty kind of way - driven by childhood demons, one suspects - whose final word will surely be the Aussie equivalent of "Rosebud."

I use Murdoch here not just as someone with a vast media empire, but as a metaphor for that perfect storm at the confluence of conservative and avaricious media barons and those "neo- cons" who believe not in democracy but in a new imperium in which the globe is fashioned in their own image and likeness...
[snip]
Murdoch does not like the idea of deeper European unity. He also happens to own - in Britain - The Sun, the biggest selling daily tabloid; The News of the World, the biggest selling Sunday tabloid; and the Sunday Times, the biggest selling Sunday broadsheet. He dispatched an emissary to Downing Street to have a word with the prime minister. The message was very clear and simple: if Blair did not agree to a referendum over the constitution then Murdoch's papers, which have supported Blair in the last two elections, would turn on him with a vengeance. Shortly after, Blair announced that he had changed his mind and that there would be a referendum.

Murdoch is the anti-democrat for insisting on a democratic vote? Want to try that again, Mr. Tracey?