I have been an admirer of Andrew Bolt's work for a long time. But that was his work as a writer. Now I'm an admirer of the Australian conservative's work as a pugilist.
Andrew Bolt has “clobbered” a group of masked protesters who set upon him in Melbourne yesterday.
On his TV program last night, Bolt explained how he was about to launch a book on US President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Carlton, in the city’s inner north, when a woman asked to take a selfie with him.
Before they could take the photo, two masked protesters set upon Bolt, spraying his face and suit with what he described as “sticky liquid with glitter and dye”.
The protesters may have got more than they bargained for because Bolt quickly retaliated, punching one of the attackers repeatedly.
“Bad luck for them, of course; I don’t do running and hiding,” he told his viewers on his Sky News program The Bolt Report on Tuesday night.
The conservative columnist screened security camera footage of the altercation on his show, freezing on the faces of each of his attackers as well as a third man who filmed the ambush.
“Police are now looking for this young man, who will have a big bruise on the left side of his face and another bruise between his legs, for which I apologise, I guess, but I don’t really fight nice if I’m pushed too far.”
That is true of conservatives. The left is descending into street violence. And there are consequences to that.
On his blog at the Herald Sun, Bolt has some genuine fighting words.
TO ALL those who called me with sympathy for being attacked on Tuesday by masked protesters: stop it. Sympathy is for losers. And we must be losers no more.
So I want your high-fives instead. I want you to laugh at the CCTV footage of the haymaker I gave one of the three men who jumped me and blinded me with a thick liquid outside a Carlton book launch I was to speak at.
Their sort has ruled the streets for too long, particularly in Melbourne.
Apologies for making a deal about punching a protester. But there is a reason for me doing this. We must intimidate and humiliate the enemies of free speech, and not let them intimidate and humiliate us.