Crikey

“Let it go Laurie. None of us is a paragon of virtue.” Or So Glenn Milne wrote in The Australian back in 2002 when Laurie Oakes went into print with the Cheryl and Gareth yarn.

So why did he think Kevin Rudd’s brief visit to a strip club was so notable?

“Oakes’s decision to both publish and broadcast this story was driven by other motivations,” Milne claimed.

“At the very best this was simply a matter of titillation. At worst, something darker.”

Something darker? That’s exactly what Kevin Rudd has suggested was behind Milne’s little bit of Sunday sleaze.

And the titillation angle was covered, too, with the line: “But, according to some sources, Mr Rudd was warned against touching the dancers by Scores management.”

To be fair to Milne’s 2002 comments, these points from his piece are pertinent:

Both sides of politics are agreed: Laurie Oakes’s story about her affair with former foreign minister Gareth Evans has had absolutely no effect on contemporary politics…

(T)he story fails the public interest test. Both Kernot and Evans have left politics…

But then he lurched into lurid hyperbole:

(W)as it worth Oakes subsequently destroying at least four lives? And that’s not counting the children involved. I’ll thank you Laurie, on their behalf.

When political journos launch into “But what about the children territory” it’s time to get worried. Or decide that you’re going to rely on Who Weekly for all your news.

“None of us is a paragon of virtue,” Milne wrote in 2002, referring to adultery.

Kevin Rudd’s alleged offence is much more minor. For once, the euphemism is accurate. It was “an error of judgement”.

Back in 2002, Milne frothed:

As far as I know, that used to be called “a smear”. And let me tell you, it most likely will not stop here. What Oakes has effectively done is open up all our private lives to public scrutiny, journalists as well as politicians.

And some of those politicians this week were muttering that Laurie might have a few dark secrets of his own. I don’t know if he does or he doesn’t and up until now it was nobody else’s business anyway. That demarcation is now gone. Beware the Adjournment Debate.

Thanks Laurie. If you’re a journalist it’s been a bad week for business.

So what’s changed in the past five years?