From The Age editor at large Mark Baker

On 23 August 2012 

After weeks of damaging media coverage and increasingly  vitriolic internet commentary about her connections with a decades-old trade  union fraud scandal, the Prime Minister resolved to tackle the critics head  on.

At a Parliament House news conference, called ostensibly to discuss asylum  seekers,  Gillard dragged the proverbial dead cat into the centre of the  room.

A silly mistake in that morning's Australian newspaper (it wrongly  reported that she had been involved in establishing a union trust fund in 1992)  led News Ltd to give her  a formal apology  and the toe-hold she needed to climb  up and over the critics.

Brazenly conflating the mistake (it was a non-profit association she helped  incorporate, not a trust fund) with a ''smear campaign'' driven by ''misogynists  and nut jobs'' on the internet, Gillard declared: ''I have decided to come to  this press conference today because this matter has got to the stage where we  are starting to see recycled, false and defamatory allegations which I have  dealt with in the past.''

Brava!  Brava!  Brava!!!!!!!

The reviews from a helpful media were amazing.

Next time Ms Gillard did a last-time-I'll-do-this conference, she arrived with a target.  

Ralph Blewitt knew things that could damage her.  She set out to damage his credibility.  It was bad he was a former friend but much worse that he was a client and owed a duty of confidentiality when she took people to court for him.

As it stands the archives, the parliamentary hansard - anyone now and forever who wants to look will find this.

http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-18925

Ms Gillard gave the Gallery a line on Ralph Blewitt. 

"People who know Mr Blewitt (say) he's a complete imbecile, an idiot, a stooge, a sexist pig, and a liar".

Dear Ms Gillard,

Do you want to tell the folks at home what diligent searching for a combination of the following terms might yield?

• people who have known Ralph Blewitt
• in a class recorded in musty files somewhere
• whose statements about Ralph Blewitt jointly or severally include
• those words marked for identification in the coward's colour above  
• +"Julia Gillard"

God forgive me for yielding to the temptation of suspecting you might have been up to no good.

I searched for evidence to help Ms Gillard.  And I found it.

The shit might hit fan the cream of Australia's journalists FIND OUT WHAT GILLARD DID TO THE PEOPLE SHE QUOTED.

Much better for the admissions to come from you Ms Gillard than me.

Your spin or mine.

Make your mind up.

Yours sincerely*

Michael Smith

Ms Gillard was losing them a bit by then.  Goodness me, imagine how they'll react now.

Note to self.  People on the list to speak to about their headlines the first time around.

Michelle Grattan (headline Unimpressive Liar Smashed Victims of Wilson)

Judith Ireland. (My Word Against My Word on people who called Ralph a sexist pig etc that time I took them to court for it)

Leigh Sales - must let her know about something for 4 Corners - no, better not, for ABC730 long-form on the bullshit artist who called Ralph Blewitt a misogynist but is in reality the lawyer who took the people who made that observation about him to court for it.

*just in case