Fairfax sorry about Cory allegations. This hurts: the apology Fairfax was forced to make to Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi over the weekend:

“Articles published by Fairfax Media on January 27 and 28 contained allegations that Senator Cory Bernardi had failed to properly declare pecuniary and other interests in his statement of registrable interests.

“They alleged that Senator Bernardi had breached his disclosure obligations by not declaring his role as international delegate of the American Legislative Exchange Council or payments received from the Heartland Institute for travel and accommodation.

“Fairfax Media accepts that its reporting of those matters was factually inaccurate in a number of respects and that the allegations regarding Senator Bernardi were unfounded.

“We retract those allegations and apologise to Senator Bernardi for the distress and damage caused by the articles.”

There’s an awful lot you can say about Cory Bernardi — just not that he failed to declare his pecuniary interests.

Rundle: Coulter puts her feet in it. What is it with the Left and violence? (Copyright: Andrew Bolt, all media, all the time.) Why yes, just last week someone called for the killing of Meghan McCain, daughter of former Republican candidate John McCain, and now a half-smart, half-ditzy centrist-conservopundit in her own right. Disgusting, I — oh hang on, it was Ann Coulter.

The raptor-like reactionary was riffing on a remark by Martin Bashir, the Brit journalist who has become a hell-raising leftist pundit on MSNBC. In the wake of the compromised gun legislation Bashir asked whether it would take the child of a Republican senator being killed to change their votes. Bashir’s point was that gay marriage is becoming acceptable on the Right because so many Republican lawmakers are having their young adult children coming out to them. Bashir’s point was about the hypocrisy of shifting your opinion for personal reasons.

Coulter’s remark? Sure, why don’t they start with Meaghan McCain! Place of publication? Her Fox News blog. There’s no need for seething leftists to make unbalanced comments about killing Right-wingers — they’re now proposing to kill each other. Fox deleted the post after uproar — and then gave Coulter a softball interview to defend herself. Perhaps the Bolter can ask Rupert and Roger Ailes whether everyone’s children are open-season, when next they gather on some island hideaway. — Guy Rundle

Front page of the day. Venezuelans are voting to choose a successor to Hugo Chavez. National daily El Nacional features the the two candidates — acting President and Chavez pick Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles — under a headline that translates as “vote, pay attention, count”.