Note: Four paragraphs that were initially cut from this article have now been included

NOT that I intend to further stick the boot into Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party senator Ricky Muir - as I'm sure enough people have done that already - but there was one thing that bugged me about the reaction to his failure during an appearance on the last Sunday Night program.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, though I struggle to see how anyone could see Mike Willesee as the villian this time around.

Some - not all - commentators, seemed to think that poor Ricky was the victim of some kind of crude stitch up, when he appeared on national television last weekend with some kind of unexplained disorder that prevented him from using the part of his brain responsible for cognitive thinking.

Who knows? Perhaps the producers down at Channel Seven did edit out hours of footage featuring Ricky's deep and meaningful insights into Australian politics, unfairly making the subject look like a goose.

One thing that can't be debated, however, is that this political representative of car enthusiasts across our great southern land struggled to tell us the meaning of the term "balance of power", while also failing to explain to those non-petrol-headed folk what the aftermarket automotive industry was all about.

No tricks, no special effects - just two fundamental questions that you'd expect someone in his position to be able to answer in their sleep.

It sure is a shame that Eddie McGuire wasn't the interviewer, or Ricky could have phoned any of the hundreds of thousands of home viewers that could have answered the questions for him.

Perhaps the lack of a 50/50 or phone-friend option was the Seven Network's only oversight, as the remainder of the story seemed to be pretty fair to me - bearing in mind that it was not Mike Willesee's job to make Mr Muir, Clive Palmer or any of his flock look particularly good or bad.

I just like to see a pollie put under the pump, because that's what 90% of their job entails; dealing with pressure.

A senator in this country gets paid close to $200,000 a year.

For that sort of money, we should expect not only a good honest person, but a person who is able to represent their constituents strongly on the telly, the radio or in any other public arena.

Mr Muir might be a good, honest, hard-working larrikin, but if he can't convey his thoughts on a national program, he surely can't be a good representative.

And spare me the line about him just being some poor bloke who works in a sawmill every day.

I'm sure there are people who work in sawmills who could chew your ear off about both the political system and the aftermarket car parts industry - so let's not tar them all with the Ricky brush.

Whatever pressure there was during this interview, Glenn Lazarus seemed to deal with it pretty well, and Clive is of course a natural. When it comes to the media, they ain't no pups.

Ricky has a lot more work to do and I'm sure that, as ugly as it was, his experience with Mr Willesee will only serve as a learning experience.

As Mike himself could attest (think back to ACA in the late 80s) everyone has their shockers on TV from time to time.

If Ricky can learn from his mistakes he might surprise us all one day.

