Carbon Cate a smoke screen

What do the following headlines have in common?

'Carbon Cate' Blanchett tells Aussies to pay up over carbon charge

Screams the Daily Telegraph

Will you listen to Carbon Cate?

Asks the Herald Sun

Cate Blanchett under fire for new carbon tax commercial

Declares the Adelaide Advertiser

Yup, thats right:

• they're all noise and smoke
• all of them imply that the "community" is outraged at our Cate (who seems to be too rich to have a valid opinion according to the papers above) daring to front a pro carbon tax ad campaign. Where community apparently == Barnaby Joyce and that well know advocate for Australian Families, the Australian Family Association
• None of them spend any amount of time attacking Michael Caton, the actor who played the lead in the movie the Castle and has been involved with programmes such as Hot Property and Packed To The Rafters. Perhaps he's too close to "average mums and dads" for the attack to be effective.

Someone asked why people were bothering getting worked up over such a cut dried example of newspaper creptitude. We know it's going to happen, it's not going to affect us, so why should we get all het up?

If we don't who will?

This is the same sort of crap that we saw during the election where we'd spend days talking about whether Julia Gillard should have worn earrings, or discussing why she doesn't carry a flapping hand bag. We could be having a serious debate about the most effective way to deal with carbon and being able to transition to a post hydrocarbon economy, but instead we're bitching about how much money an actress has, and whether this makes her unsuited to talk about a policy.

To make this round of "attack the person not the policy" even more moronic, Cate Blanchett actually appears to practice what she preaches:

• That mansion everyone is bitching about? It's off the grid. She has spent quite a bit of the money she has earned to ensure that what she uses she makes. She's living the green dream in that respect. 
• She's converted the Sydney Theatre Company digs to Solar.
• She is an active campaigner on environmental issues. This isn't exactly new for her.

So there you have it. The actress who News Ltd has declared to be "out of touch" and "elitist", and have trashed for daring to tell "average australians" (sorry are those the ones earning more than $150,000?) that a carbon tax might actually be a good idea, is actually someone who knows what they're talking about.

And meanwhile the policy debate sinks slowly into the mire, just as was intended in the first place.