Turnbull and Cruz are life imitating satire

Politics is a bloody sport, even in stable established democracies like Australia and the USA. Politicians are forever saying the most outrageous things to gain power or keep it. Quite often it's like watching a dark satirical comedy playing out before your very eyes.

Malcolm Turnbull, for example, is proving to be even more Machiavellian than most people thought. Comparisons with Frank Underwood in House of Cards are becoming increasingly frequent.

Though Turnbull himself joked that the only thing he had in common with the Kevin Spacey character was the fact that he's used a rowing machine, the show's writers clearly don't think so. When our PM changed the game radically recently with this double dissolution dare, the show's official Twitter account had this to say:

.@TurnbullMalcolm I admire your methodology, Prime Minister. If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table.

— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) March 21, 2016

Then there's Turnbull's use of the slogan "continuity and change". This was a line used by the protagonist of the HBO show Veep. Highly unlikely that Turnbull used the line knowingly, of course. But that just makes it even more absurd.

And now Ted Cruz has now been caught lifting a line from a political comedy, possibly knowingly this time.

I'm sure there'll be several more cases of life imitating satirical comedy before the year's out.