“It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat“
    –tweeted by activist/comedian Jonnie Marbles, immediately before pie-ing News Corp godfather Rupert Murdoch at UK parliamentary hearing. Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng reached over their bodyguard to strike Mr. Marbles, and curiously, hearing room cameras cut all direct images of the spectacle. Watching Murdoch deny knowledge or curiosity about NOTW wrongdoings, you wonder how word even reached him that his presence was requested at this parliamentary inquiry.

I’m thinking the PR coaching the Murdochs received is being overrated. Pretend to be a hands-off boss so not to expose your wrists to be slapped in cuffs? No one was buying Murdoch the Elder’s senility schtick, until the media began its spin, and wasn’t it amazing to gaze upon the breadth of media fealty shown to Rupert? Everyone wanted to distance themselves from Braveheart Marbles, because he purportedly threw audience sympathy to Murdoch. Right. The only ones fooled are those shills pretending. The world TV audience saw Murdoch for what they know he is, a blackmailer of world leaders, pursuing the ugliest of neoliberal war-making agendas.

Of course Rupert’s media was going to praise the Missus for her flying-clawing attack of the pie-wielding Marbles. It wasn’t intervention mind you, but retaliatory. I hope he can sue her. He’d already done the pie and was being subdued, she leaped over security to have at him.

Did Marbles spoil the show? Nonsense. He waited until the last of the softball questions, and took his turn. The parliamentarians may have been setting technical legal snares to trap the Murdochs at a later date, but certainly they could also have been asking, for example, did Murdoch wonder how the NOTW obtained confidential information, and was any ever withheld because it would lead others to question its illegal source. Also, did Murdoch ever use the threat of releasing confidential information to leverage government policy in his favor?

The big story for me was how the camera feed cleverly cut away from Marbles’ stunt. Ostensibly to capture the action suddenly coming from off-camera, but ultimately censoring the main scene. Where were the multitude of stills from that moment, of Elder Murdoch’s face filled with pie? Images abound now of the pie-wielder, caught effectively with egg-white on his face, but of Murdoch, not even a smudge, his splattered jacket whisked out of view before the frontal camera feed was let to resume.

How that sequence was managed for Murdoch tells a lot I think about the power he wields. Similar to the aftermath of the murdered girl’s violated voicemail. As the story broke, it wasn’t just messages erased, but internet caches of the early evidence, effaced even from hacktivists who know how to rescue unarchived data. Tracks of NOTW malfeasance erased by malfeasance at a much higher pay grade.

But I celebrate Jonnie Marbles, aka Jonathan May-Bowles, for daring something even the most powerful men in the world dare not, to humiliate Rupert Murdoch, on live TV with a world audience no less. It was a feat worthy of the shoe thrower, and no less deserved. I only hope the price Marples may have to pay, isn’t the fate of Sean Hoare, an earlier source of ire for Murdoch Elder.

I celebrate Jonnie Marbles’ last tweets before his deed:

I’m actually in this committee and can confirm: Murdoch is Mr. Burns.

RT @RachelvsPublic: Have you ever wondered what a verbal sudoku would be like to solve? This is it. #Hackgate #Yates

One gets the sense that they haven’t really done the required reading ahead of their presentation. Think they may fail this module #hackgate

It might be quicker if Baby Murdoch simply listed all of the things that he does know #hackgate

It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat

UPDATE: The Guardian gave Jonnie Marbles a chance to explain his stunt. He’s taking a beating in the comments, but here’s my favorite:

At last we have someone in this whole sorry mess who can own up and take responsibility for their own actions.

If the Murdochs had thrown a pie at Johnnie the article would read :

I never threw that pie. I was not in the position at the time to throw that pie.?

I don’t remember that pie, I throw 56,000 pies every day, how I am supposed to remember one individual pie??

If a pie was thrown, then someone I trusted must have thrown that pie.?

With hindsight I never threw the pie but if I had thrown the pie it was a mistake and I will apologise once all the facts are known about the pie and if I really threw it or not.?

This is the most humble pie day of my life.

Cheer up Johnnie.