Sticking the boot into Kevin
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Kevin Rudd, fail whale: Jenny Morris writes: Re. “Essential: Rudd is damaged goods, and badly damaging Labor in turn” (Monday, item 1). Regarding your stories on Kevin Rudd’s fall in the polls (an undeniable decline), and the scathing comments in your Comments section yesterday. Amazing how quickly everyone sticks the boots into Kevin Rudd. Why is the loathing so personal? I was reflecting only last week (to self, and others) how nasty political commentary had become in this country — bilious, vitriolic, simplistic and generally unconstructive. It’s laughable that the media, so enmeshed in the sound-bite driven politics in this country and largely responsible (with a few exceptions) for the lack of sensible public debate, now turns on Kevin Rudd for spin and media management. Pot, kettle, black, anyone? What’s the alternative anyway? Tony Abbott and a Liberal Party without any policy inspiration, still directionless without the iron hand of Howard at the tiller, leading Australia ever downwards as it destroys the fabric of Australian public life with a “me first, bugger anyone who’s a different colour and not already here” rhetoric? And speaking of JWH, I suspect the inane “debate” in our media (and politicians’ response to it) arises largely from the Howard years, where there was little if any meaningful debate, voters were bought off with pots of money our future couldn’t afford, the public service was demoralized and run into the ground, and the media got used to playing a negative game. Maybe Rudd and his government are reaping what Howard sewed for all those years. Chris Lehmann writes: What we were promised by Rudd:
What we got:
It’s all hyperbole and spin ad infinatum. To mangle Winston Churchill…. “never has so much been promised by so few costing so much and achieving so little.” It’s used car salesmanship 101, over promise to get the sale, and then blame everyone else when the product doesn’t live up to the sales pitch. I shudder to think what we would get from another three years with this mob. David Cameron and Gordon Brown: Keith Thomas writes: Re. “Rundle’s UK: Brown resigns, a Labour/Lib-Dems union beckons” (yesterday, item 4). The very first thing David Cameron said in public as British Prime Minister was both untrue and loaded with spin: he acknowledged that Britain under Labour had “become a more open society at home and a more compassionate one abroad” or words to that effect. Begin as you intend to continue? How long before the British become as disenchanted with their new leader as Australians have become with Kevin Rudd and Americans with Barack Obama?
Fat finger fubar: Niall Clugston. writes: Re. “Still no news on why or how the crash happened” (yesterday, item 21). Glenn Dyer wrote on the cause of Thursday’s US stock market crash: “Five days after the crash, those who should know, can’t or won’t say. Can’t is more like it.” Well, I think it’s “won’t”. The nonsense that it was due to a trader with a “fat finger” went round the world and was reported as fact. This had the initial effect of calming international markets, which was no doubt the intention. None of the subsequent enquiries have unearthed anything, but by now only Glenn Dyer remembers the issue and it can safely be declared dead. The truth is the market freefall was as ”rational” as any of its other movements, but this isn’t what the public is supposed to hear. Kossmann and trial by media: Peter Wilms writes: Re. “Trial by media goes for the doctor: come up empty handed” (yesterday, item 17). The case of Dr Thomas Kossmann and trial by media is redolent of the way in which Jim Selim, the founder of Pan Pharmaceuticals, was treated as his world fell about him with the company’s forced and unjustified closure in 2003 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. At the time TGA did one of the best hatchet jobs seen and used the media to vilify and demonise Selim while peddling tendentious arguments to justify its decision to destroy the company. Having destroyed the company with the help of a compliant media, it then set about pursuing Selim personally, concocting a range of criminal charges that, if proven, could have resulted in a lengthy prison term. Again the media appeared to be in thrall to the TGA. Notwithstanding Selim beat all charges and then turned the tables on the TGA by bringing a massive civil damages action against the Commonwealth. In that case he proved that executives of the TGA had acted outside their powers, had been guilty of misfeasance and had been negligent in their duties. It was a slap in the face for the reputation of the Commonwealth public service in general and the TGA in particular. In his civil case Selim was awarded $50 million in damages. Perhaps Kossmann could learn something from Selim’s experience of dealing with authorities and the media when they decide to work together to destroy reputations and lives. The burqa: Mike Carey writes: Frank Birchall (yesterday, comments) is right, a clear view of the face helps define us. I propose we ban beards, especially big, bushy, Dick Adams, Ned Kelly, Henry Parkes hirsuteness. The burqu equals beard envy. Peter Burnett writes: Senator Cory Bernardi may be on the right track with his demand that we should ban the burqa as a way of stopping un-Australian criminal behaviour. Please find attached some illustrations as evidence for his thesis that bandits cover their face during robberies.
Dad’s Army vs. Tony Abbott: CRIKEY: In yesterday’s Comments section Crikey reader Glen Frost wrote:
We then asked our wonderful readers for some help because with the Federal Budget and deadline looming we were unable to initiate investigation to find said picture. And my! didn’t Crikey’s readers respond! We’d like to thank Fiona, Elizabeth, Erin, Victoria, Robert, Edward, Michael, Steve, Andrew, Robert, Keith, Mike and Sharlene for sending in the image to us (which was apparently on Possum’s blog but we missed it). So here it is (via YouTube)…
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8 Comments
Chris Lehmann, you are a tiny man aren’t you? Fuel watch and grocery watch were harmless bloody websites.
Stopping refugees in any way is utterly against our own law let alone international law and why in god’s name you think turning away people to kill them is rational is beyond me.
The rest is trivia old son.
The world’s economies crashed - they are still crashing. 2 billion people have little or no food and housing, and you are still whining about frigging websites.
Get over it.
the main failure of the Rudd government is the myschool website, which has entrenched privilege and wealth at the expense of the poor. That an ALP government would deprive (essentially) workers of education is appalling. The next failure is the ETS, which was due to a Liberal Party which reneged on a fair deal, but may have been a dud piece of legislation in any case. After then, things have run pretty smoothly: I agree with @sheperdmarilyn.
Chris Lehmann - Rudd saved your arse (and your job) from the GFC. Give him some credit. The Libs would have waited to see - and we would have been screwed by the GFC fallout.
Bakerboy is right. My company lost 10% of the workforce — friends who could not afford to be thrown out of work during the GFC, and I bet it would have been 20% without the stimulus — possibly my job or most definitely more of the great friends I work with.
Australia is one of the only three countries with a similar sized stimuli that have strong economic growth this year.
That’s the problem with you righties is that you conveniently ignore the fact that the GFC is ongoing. You also conveniently ignore the fact that the Coalition has been abusing their Senate majority to block most of the Government initiatives so far — some of those are in your list.
Face facts — Rudd probably saved your sorry, ungrateful a*se — or that of people you know. Learn to give credit where it is due or your argument falls flat fanboi.
Above directed to Chris Lehmann
Jenny, I’m not a Rudd hater (and that “why Rudd is a failure” headline was Crikey’s, not mine.) In fact I was barracking for him back in aught three. But he needs to sack his current advisers and get used to saying what he means. Then he might have the confidence to call out the ecocidal maniacs he is confronting, instead of giving them credence by constantly giving way to their arguments.
@Pedro, a lot more of that “stimulus” went into keeping any nasty red figures out of the balance sheets of home owners and housing investors, than keeping you in business. Maybe one dollar in ten of the excessive debt did something for business.
Face facts, the Chinese stimulus — focused on an infrastructure theme, like ours should have been — and our own mining sector, saved us from having a recession.
In return, the Chinese have copped a whole lot of insults from us, and the mining sector is being partially nationalized. And you give our government all the credit.
Now Swan is boasting we’ll have the budget back in surplus in three years. Stop and think what that means: the public debt is still growing for another three years!. After that it will stop getting any bigger, provided nothing else goes wrong.
Do you realize the BER still has $14 billion left to spend? Do you realize the first home owners grant is still paying $7,000 on each home sale? Wake up people, there is a maniac taking your money and spending it on anything he feels like, anything at all.
Jenny,
The political commentary in this country has been consistently pro Rudd ever since he became ALP leader in late 2006. His collapse in the polls is entirely self-inflicted as he has been caught out as abjectly hollow, especially his craven back-peddling on asylum seekers and climate change. The idea that his greatest moral challenge is to get re-elected resonates very strongly. He is forever broken as a politician of integrity and principle.
But don’t worry. the ALP will win the election this year anyway.