One becomes weary of otb's particular brand of midgetry...like some whining sneering great aunt of right-wing persuasion who's battened down the hatches and ensconced in her "upright" chair of indignation and sour-faced ridicule.

Not happy to merely put the boot into Gough...he's now getting his jollies from maligning the Greens in their celebration of him....thrills for the scanty intellect?

"For three years Gough Whitlam risked his life climbing into the sky where other men wanted to kill him. He fought against the Japanese as a navigator and bomb aimer with the RAAF's Number 13 Squadron, which flew slow, under-armed Bristol Beauforts and later the American-made Lockheed Venturas as long-range maritime strike aircraft.

Perhaps, like Keith Miller, the test cricketer and fellow air force veteran who famously scoffed at the idea of there being any real pressure in sport – "pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse" – Whitlam took some perspective from those years."

"In this nasty, brutish but ultimately small and squalid era of politics, when image consultants are forever tucking prime ministers and would-be prime minsters into flack jackets and fighter bombers to gird their image in martial armour, we are well served by remembrance of a man who, like the Liberal's John Gorton, volunteered and fought his good fight and then moved on; a creator at heart, not a destroyer."

"Edward Gough Whitlam protected his country from the predations of Imperial Japan. He did not climb into those flying coffins for a sound grab and a photo-op. But having played his small, individual role in that great struggle, he went on to protect us from the creeping threats which come upon a nation without the great alarums of war."

"Poverty, ignorance, bigotry, inequality, the closing of minds, the entrenching of privilege and power, all of these he fought against. He fought for us."

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/economist-disarms-gough-whitlams-sneering-detractors-20141023-11alm7.html#ixzz3H6JdQ5jY

No wonder the Greens laud him - compared to the puny, myopic and self-aggrandising conduct of the present administration - and mirrored by the likes of otb - Whitlam's legacy is beyond compare.

Dear Poirot,

Thank You for the link and your comments.

You've expressed what many of us are feeling
at this time.

There will always be people
on the internet and public forums such as this
one, who one would not associate with normally
in our daily life. People who simply can't help
themselves and insist on broadcasting the failings
of others with a vengenance, while trying to
trash their achievements.
And, you're right - it is a rather small and mean thing to
do, especially - when a person has died and
their achievements by far - outnumber their failings.

Come off it Poirot, if all it takes to win your long lasting admiration is a bit of defence effort, you are missing giving it to a few others around here.

Some of us did not even need a bloody war to be prepared to defend this country.

Looking at what it has become, to some extent because of Whitlam & his like, I have to wonder if it was worth it, & am very glad my son has resigned. I don't think the place & it's values is worth defending as it is today.

I really do find it amazing that the most easily deceived are the most rabid in defending the incompetents.

"Come off it Poirot, if all it takes to win your long lasting admiration is a bit of defence effort, you are missing giving it to a few others around here."

Ahem...Hasbeen - the point was that Whitlam didn't feel the need to serially wrap a jet fighter around him or rattle his saber for a photo shoot and a bit of right-wing newsprint, unlike the try-hard "shirt-front"-threatening dope currently leading the nation.

Whitlam didn't trumpet his military role and his exploits like some around here who spend much time and effort megaphoning their achievements in this area.

I'd stand Whitlam and his govt's achievements against the witless Abbott, his prancing machismo and his dud myopic government any day.

Re Hasbeen's objections to "these groups claiming exclusive use of perfectly good English words."

So Hasbeen wants people to put up with the derogatory names he labels them with. But they want to chose what words they call themselves.

Aren't they outrageous! What a sense of entitlement to want to chose themselves! Anyone would think this is free country!

Hasbeen, the words of English aren't exclusively yours. They belong to everybody, even people you don't like. Tough titty

What has not been explained is why leftist and Labor voters fled in their droves from Whitlam and the landslide against him threw Gough and his crew out on their ears. Not even one term and out forever!

You'd think that a PM who is being lauded as 'adored by the people', 'achieved everything that really mattered' and was the 'father of modern Australia' would have been invited back by the Australian public to serve longer than five minutes.

Perhaps some here need to return to the newspapers of the time where scarcely a day went by without some major scandal and stuff-up by the Whitlam government.

BTW, whatever became of 'Mr Monkey Nuts', Khemlani (The Loans Affair, 1974-75)?