Comments on: Malcolm's modus operandi

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:43:04 +0000

Yeah. The Ken hendry brouhaha is disgraceful. utterly.
As for Bush, who cares? IMHO, what happened, regardless of Rudd’s denials, is a bit of Labor payback for Howard’s egregious insult of Obama last year. Good on ‘em.

By: jinmaro

jinmaro — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:01:53 +0000

There is something clearly wrong with any sort of effective critical political tactics if they do not include, in this instance, the simple assertion that the substance of the conversation between Bush and Rudd should not, as a matter of course, be necessarily private. The privacy issue is completely secondary for anyone other than mental slaves.

By: joe2

joe2 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:17:08 +0000

Jane ever so nicely said @9

There is something so very wrong about the Turnbull team tactics, at all levels.

They say that it is out of their concern for the Australian reputation for a quiet chat with a dignitary that has been put under threat by the denied Rudd/Bush disclosure of a hardly surprising POTUS ignorance about something. Yet, they are determined to advertise it to death even if it is more likely to cause the kind of damage they pretend to care about.

It is similar to their feigned concern for the economy. They are clearly quite prepared to use any opportunity to damage confidence at a pretty dicey time for a hoped political advantage. Paul Keating pointed this out to Mal, recently, and he just shrugged it off. And as for beating up on public servants, like Ken Henry, they just come across as ignorant bullys.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:21:45 +0000

Puffball is flogging the G20 dead horse in parliament again. Once again, he’s accused Rudd of leaking “incorrect details” of that now infamous imaginary phone conversation, according to Mark Kenny, The Adelaide Advertiser’s political editor. He apparently used his “inquisitorial skills to probe the PM” and moved a censure motion against Rudd which was defeated along party lines.
And in the OO, Dennis Shanahan reports that Puffbull “has accused Kevin Rudd of damaging relations with Washington by libelling the US President and portraying George W Bush as ‘a fool’ to fuel his own vanity.”
Never mind that Bush doesn’t need any help in convincing everyone he’s a fool or that the White House has denied the so-called details of the phone conversation, Malvolio just can’t let it go and continues to thunder away making himself look more foolish than Bush at his worst.
Rudd refusing to play is making him even more strident and when he directed Stephen Smith to respond to the censure motion, the shrillometer went off the scale.
I’m sorry I can’t provide links; neither paper seemed to deem it worthy of online inclusion. FWIW, The Australian has the report on p4 of The Nation section and it’s on p28 in the Advertiser.
How deep a hole will the government let him dig before it buries him, I wonder?

By: jinmaro

jinmaro — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:54:31 +0000

Actually I think Malcolm Turnball is an incredible spunk and I really like him as a political figure, even though I am to the left of Fidel Castro. I am listening to what he has to say, to the extent I have time, and I would like to hear more from him. Who wouldn’t? He is articulate, coherent, passionate, politically challenging, likable and funny (ha-ha). He is going to be a formidable Opposition leader and already is to the extent that anyone is listening in la-la land.

Self-delusion and wishful thinking are so very transparent characteristics of sycophants and lazy liberals.

By: GoTroppo

GoTroppo — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:56:20 +0000

Is it more a case that the opposition are merely filling the void left by Labor saying nothing (of substance at least)? This may not be the case – perhaps they ARE saying things and the MSM are just ignoring it, but I do worry that the MSM have become addicted to Howard’s media style where he’d literally pop up and talk about anything currently news worthy.

Rudd tends to take a more reserved, thoughtful approach – which is great – but it leaves a huge void in the news that, at the moment, the Libs are gladly filling. Worse, it’s starting to look like a LOT of thinking but not a lot of action – which again is probably wrong, but it gives more and more traction to opposition talking points.

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:21:56 +0000

Nice tip o’ the hat to Voltaire, paul.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:14:12 +0000

As I remarked on the thread about Newspoll, and as Kim infers in her comments, Malcolm seems to be talking himself into irrelevance. IMHO, it doesn’t matter what the commenteriat is saying if the rest of us aren’t listening. Might be different if it was an election campaign, but it ain’t.

By: adrian

adrian — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:05:11 +0000

Poor Michael Brissenden could hardly get the words out when forced to ‘analyse’ the latest Newspoll. In the end he decided that ‘Rudd must be doing something right”, as though he had no idea what that something was, and it was obviously something irrelevant to the commentariate.

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:41:28 +0000

Ah, yes, man of the people, etc.

Apparently when Brendan did it it was hokey schtick, but now that Malcolm’s doing it…

I think we’re beginning to see what they mean by “honeymoon with the press gallery”. They’re in lerve…