Comments on: G20 gaffe: Australian public say “whatever”

By: Venise Alstergren

Venise Alstergren — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

JamesK: (This isn’t specifically aimed at you, or the old righty Bernard) If people want to have a shot at Kevin Rudd they should do so. However, do so fair and square without the necessity of invoking the ‘Now you’ll think I’m awful’ clause. It seems the greatest crime is always. “What will the world think of us?” So sorry, but after a fair amount of travel, to a very wide selection of countries, I can honestly say that the world has many more things to do than think about the land of Oz. Doubtless we may get the occasional comment on the diplomatic/foreign affairs circuit. But as conversation amongst the billions of the world’s people Rudd’s pretentiousness wouldn’t rate a murmer.

I know I’d rather have the arrogance of Kevin Rudd, leading a fairly cohesive government, than I would have the arrogance, hubris and madness of Malcolm Turnbull leading a party who still have failed to realize they are no longer the party in power. They actually blo*dy think theirs is the divine right to rule.

Every time my eyes glaze over whilst listening to our Prime Minister, or our Treasurer, the one and only Wayne Swan; I force myself to think of Turnbull ripping off his glasses hauling out his spectral scatter-gun to accuse the Rudd Government of everything up to serial raping the Rape crops, humping the Hospitals to trivializing the Treasury. If this mind-numbingly boring performance wasn’t enough to torture me, the camera pans across the BACKBENCH to reveal the superficial little whatshername? Bishop. Then it covers (?) Joe Hockey-all of him. His bulk is as huge as his intelligence is small. Then the little figure scrabbling for attention, the guy with the jug-ears. Abbott. Finally I’m forced to think of Peter Costello, the greatest waste of space-but paid for by us-in living memory. With an alternative government like this, Kevin Rudd can do almost anything he wants with impunity.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

We are left with the inexorable conclusion that the Prime Minister of this country gave a journalist a false account of a telephone conversation between himself and the President of the United States, where he denigrated the President of the United States and in order to make himself look good.

It says much about Rudd's character and judgment and none of it good.

Difficult to gauge about how much harm it has done Australia's ability to relate with the international community at this level but by op-ed accounts of retired diplomats and journos in the know it would seem quite serious.

I think Bernard is correct. People do not care. Though they should.

The other thing to note is that the Gillard/Tanner- understudy team shine in the absence of Rudd and Swan

By: Allison

Allison — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I personally think that the President of the United States of American not knowing what a G20 is something that Kevin Rudd is obliged to tell the entire world about. And you are right I don’t give two figs that Mr Rudd or someone else leaked the story. I don’t even think that it matters that there was a leak. To command respect and loyalty you need to earn it and I don’t see anything that the Bush has done for Australia or our Prime Minister to owe him the respect and or loyalty of keeping his stupidity hushed up. It is not like it is a suprise.

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Yawn!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Mary Ann

Mary Ann — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

George Bush would have wanted a Strine interpretor with him when he spoke to Kevin Rudd and who would be more suitable than his Strine assistant, what’s-his-face, that sprog of Howard’s. Got onto the payroll way back for services rendered by the Deputy Sheriff.
If there was a leak perhaps it came from the other end of the pipeline.

By: Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I tend to think it was a staffer just as certain machine guys were ramping the crowd against Nelson on Sorry Day speech.

So Rudd would have to either sack ‘em or wear it. I think he is right to wear it for at least two reasons.

1. It engenders even more loyalty in the crew when you take the knocks for someone who has demonstrably stuffed up. Staff really love that. Here’s an example: Josh Lyman attacks a Christian conservative annoys millions of voters and gets a reprieve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(The_West_Wing)

2. Also people don’t realise Howard’s attack on Obama was outrageous. I think it was even actionable but in the culture of politics it was dealt with politically by Obama’s stinging reply about ginned up passengers playing armchair general while the African American soldiers were taking the hit, the anglo Americans too. And the Iraqis. We benefit from a cut through that breaks with Howard’s smear.

So all in all it serves the purpose of the nation to let it travel out there.

Lastly LO’s piece last weekend was a balancer for playing soft on Swan and the ALP weekend before. Rein launching his book to me was unwise. Now it’s back to tors with that rough headline on Rudd.

By: Mark Duffett

Mark Duffett — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Go for it, Bernard. Ignore the gobsmackingly shallow professions of boredom by those who think that leaking a private conversation between two world leaders is perfectly OK, simply because the contents of the leak reinforce their ideological prejudices.

By: Ed Scheer

Ed Scheer — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

‘People, it seems, don’t want to know that their Prime Minister has an ego so large it unbalances his judgement.’ References to Rudd’s ego are now becoming cliche. Bernard you are alone in finding ego to be a dirty word in politics. Its a sine qua non of any successful pollie and a fairly basic part of the structure of the psyche according to Freud. Strongly suggest you get over it.

By: priestley

priestley — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Could Bernard Keane get it into his head that he is right in only one thing, nobody, here or in America, cares. Nor does anyone with a brain draw the illogical conclusion from such facts as we know that Keane abusively does, that the incident tells us anything about Rudd’s character, except that he’s human. Keane’s conclusions and abuse are baseless. His conclusions simply do not follow. Leave it alone, Bernard, this stupid farce that continues day after day and gets extremely irritating. Bill Priestley

By: k8

k8 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Bernard is teetering on the precipice. The big hole yawning before him is a pit of contempt for Australian voters. Bernard, we are not stupid, bored by it all or blinded by our love for Kevin into ignoring the matters of great principle at the heart of this manufactured debate. We just have a frikkin’ sense of proportion (unlike most “media commentators”). Lots of important, interesting things going on these days, Bernard. Let’s focus on them, eh? Actually, why don’t we trim down the vast numbers of so-called journalists now spruiking their waffly, uninteresting opinions and get in some people actually willing to do some investigative legwork instead?