I did but see him passing by

Guambat is here talking about the inscrutable Mr. Murdoch, but with full apoplectics to poor old Sir Robert Menzies, the die hard of monarchism in Australia. Be sure to click the link in that story to hear this.

Murdoch is no Sisyphus. When that bastard chooses to climb a mountain, stone and all, he does; and he stays. Stone and all.

Or so it once was, and so it may forevermore no longer be if the story is told the way some minstrels would sing it.

Mr. Murdoch is one of those Genghis Khan types whose unbent rises to power consumes himself. For him, every slight along the way, every refusal to step aside, is not only remembered, it is crucified in both glory and gore.

When he was only 30 he had to step back and tug forelock from the ascending Kennedy star, in a move that left him with but no choice but to give up his birthright of citizenship to take on the entirety of the American political might, with control of the Wall Street Journal and Fox "News" and countless other rags for riches.

But before he consummated screwing over the sheepish American "news" followers, he first had to settle his score with the Mother Land, and the Mother of all mothers in that land.

Murdoch got his moleskins dirty following other Aussie country gentry, such as John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party. McEwen was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt Liberal Party. (Wikisource) "From the very first issue of The Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners."

Murdoch, probably akin to McEwen, and certainly unlike Menzies, chafed at the old English establishment running Australia. So he would have been less than pleased with Menzies' sycophantic rendition of "we did but see her passing by". ("Despite Menzies continuing electoral success, Australians increasingly felt that his British and royalist sentiments were out of step with the majority attitude. This was brought to the fore in Menzies' much-lampooned 1963 speech to the Queen in which he quoted the verse "I did but see her passing by and yet I love her till I die". (Click to hear an excerpt from the speech." (From this).)

And so, before exiling himself back to Merry Old England, Murdoch, like a cat in a cat pan, scratched over Menzies' place in history by backing his nemesis, Gough Whitlam. As Wikipedia recounts, "Rupert Murdoch's flirtation with Whitlam turned out to be brief." Murdoch was, even at that early point in his empire building, more pragmatic than dogmatic, but even so, you could only push an old dog so far.

Having buried Menzies and abandoned Whitlam, Murdoch set about settling scores with Merry Old. As Wikepedia puts it: "In Britain in the 1980s Murdoch formed a close alliance with Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun credited itself with helping John Major to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election.[38] However, in the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election).

As we've seen in his framing of Fox News, Murdoch is very keen on selling media by, simply, telling folks what they want to hear, and then claiming it was his idea all along. Fair and balanced? Get real. Never give a sucker an even chance. Make him laugh, make him dance, make him pay.

And so, by wheeling an wiling, Murdoch has stitched up the world, from Adelaide to Arlington, from Sydney to Surrey, from Baltimore to Beijing. It's been a feat you just have to admire, no matter how much it makes you sick to your stomach at the same time.

But like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Genghis and the rest, the impetuous dash for power, glory and most likely just getting even with all the rest because one slob sometime somewhere kicked sand in their faces, they burn out. Some of them go down in a flame of glory, others just go down, burned out.

Mr Murdoch is past his high corona days, but not one to be shorted unhedged.

As this item from not too long ago reported, It was Murdoch wot won it – or so he'd like us to believe.

Murdoch the Magician. Can he unwrap himself, again, from this Houdini trap?

Murdoch Defiant as FBI Acts

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal [WHICH HE OWNS] late Thursday, he said he wanted to address "some of the things that have been said in Parliament, some of which are total lies. We think it's important to absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public. ...I felt that it's best just to be as transparent as possible."

Guambat has indeed but seem him, figuratively, passing by. But love him 'til he dies? Not a chance.

A good Israeli friend once told Guambat, you have to admire the Israelis, even if it is impossible to love them. Funny, Murdoch doesn't loooook Jewish.