Bush & Company

There are those who hold that the disheveled, check-shirted shaving cream attacker, a spectator at Parliament's interrogation of Rupert Mudoch on July 19 in London, was a fraud, the assault designed as a distraction from the embarassment to the Murdoch contingent and a ploy to gain public sympathy. The thrower's accusation of "greedy," "greedy billionaire" or "naughty billionaire," quoted by varied accounts, however, makes the attack seem authentic. Would Murdoch's people deliberately call attention to the "inconvenient truth?"

Murdoch's wife Wendi, his son James and his bodyguard, all tried to help, though it was Wendi who, swiftly jumping to her feet, intercepted the attack, but after the mogul's face and jacket were flecked with foam. Early reports had called the offending substance pie, but later, shaving cream, carried into the proceedings on a paper plate.

The disruption, preceded by many such events in the past, originally as a slapstick gimmick, evolving into a form of protest against celebrities, royalty and in the case of President George W. Bush, with a pair of shoes, was caused by a standup comic/activist by the name of Jonathan May-Bowles or Jonnie Marbles. He has probably defeated his purpose by turning the disgraced tycoon into a victim and his wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, into a heroine; though the incident, soon to fade into history, will be replaced by the seriousness of his offenses.

Blame for the cell-phone hacking and bribery scandal, toppling the 168-year-old tabloid News of the World and perhaps the entire Murdoch global media empire, he attributes to the people he trusted and the people they trusted "and it's for them to pay."

Ramifications of the scandal are multifold. In America, where his tainted affiliations with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox News and others, are also high profile, he may pay more dearly than in Britain, where politicians are dependent on newspapers for their election, where no paid political advertising exists and where tabloids are extremely influential. It follows that Parliament may be guarded in their dealing with the magnate; regrettable, as a criminal conviction there would facilitate an end to the era of Murdoch media monopoly.

There must be many participants on all levels of the Murdoch operations and scams which might be just the tip of the iceberg. At the very least, one weak link among them could, out of conscience or faint heart, fill in more of the sordid details.

Was the tousled bloke who threw
Pie-shaped shaving cream at Rupe
Genuinely in a stew?
Was his fury really true?

Was the thrower there to dupe,
That episode of shaving cream
Rather, a distractive scheme?
Was the pie another lie

Or an honest manifestation
Of the outrage of a nation?