Hardly surprising, I must say, to read that Peter Costello has dumped on Howard in his book and has also ruled out standing for the Liberal leadership. What a petulant and self-indulgent performance.
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Some wit said at least the book will have a spine, and I am sure it will never run to a paperback which is spineless of sorts, unless of course it is released as a paperback poetic justice maybe.
Now perhaps Tip’s Libs can come out of the phone box their current meeting room and put there weight behind a real Lib “Ironbar” that is, he is even further away from reality than they are.
I never imagined that he was lying on Nov 25th.
I still can’t believe the hysteria.
I had to laugh at The Age lead. Maybe he’s auditioning for a spot on the Coodabeens!
(Hint for those non-AFL followers: the title of the Coodabeens came from famous pub talk along the lines of, ” I didn’t play in the big league, but with the right breaks I coodabeen a champion.”)
God that was utterly pointless. We had to sit through months of this tedious bullshit speculation in the face of all available evidence only to be hit with the ‘bombshell’ revelation that exactly what everyone thought was going to happen, will happen.
Death to the Commentariat!
Death to Glen Milne!
Death to Political Memoirs!
It is pretty amazing that the person who sought the highest office in this country can display such child like behavior. Or then again maybe it isn’t….
Andrew Bolt is still hopeful
“Costello calls it quits. Or maybe doesn’t”
This is bordering on ridiculous. Someone needs an intervention.
The unedited version of my letter in The Oz today:
Am I the only person outraged that Peter Costello can draw on the public teat for 6 months while developing a commercial product for his personal profit and then a further 3 or 4 months while he builds pre-launch sales of the product?
Surely it is unethical, probably immoral, possibly in contravention of Federal legislation, no doubt in breach of his employment contract, and a complete abuse of Parliament and his electorate?
On 25 November last year he said he was not interested in the leadership. He hasn’t said anything since to indicate he changed his mind. Why so many people have been frolicking around in response to gibbering from a bunch of journalists with delusions of grandeur is beyond me.
they don’t call Milney the Poison Dwarf for nothing
Pshaw!! Bollocks!! Harrumph!! Twaddle!!
The bit I really enjoyed was his po-faced “look over there!” comment about not becoming a Keating, and not be “embittered by defeat” etc.
Thats wasn’t the lesson you needed, Smirker.
It was on how to win that you needed to learn from PJK. You gimp!
Well yes Ken @ 8, but there was also no reason (apart from killing potential book sales he’s just killed anyway) Costello couldn’t have reconfirmed he wasn’t interested in the leadership. At the very least, so that his colleagues didn’t have to also look like gibbering idiots in the dark these last few months
Who knows? Maybe he did consider it but more recent private polling showed that while Lib supporters might have rated him as their favoured replacement for Nelson, on the question of Preferred Prime Minister, he still bombed terribly with the Australian public at large.
Why is it I feel like I’ve just watched a dead-parrot sketch in super-slow motion?
Man the comments on that news thread, such vitriol for a government that’s only been in for nine months. Imagine the aneurysms that are going to be induced come term II…
Patrickg, thanks for the lead to the “news” comments.
A refreshing reminder of what a total freak-show they are. Not too sure endless bickering between a handful of folks with a lot of time on their hands represents a nation’s position on its federal govt’s progress, but if it works for you….
Chris C, MPs write books for profit all the time. See, for example, “Postcode” by Labor politician Wayne Swan, “Civilising Global Capital” by Labor politician Mark Latham and “Crowded Lives” by Labor politician Lindsay Tanner, all of which (I’m pretty sure) were written while their respective authors were sitting MPs (or, as you prefer to say, when they were ‘drawing on the public teat’). I do not recall much debate about whether they had breached Federal legislation by doing so, or whether they had committed a fraud upon their respective electorates, but perhaps they did.
BBB
That nasty Mr Howard.
Apart from the support of the majority of the Parliamentary Liberal Party what did he have that Mr Costello didn’t have?
Oh, except for a Kirribilli doorstep blessedly unsullied by the shadow of that smirking upstart and his pathetically loyal spouse, of course.
cosmicjester @ 6, you gotta love Bolt’s phrasing: Malcolm Turnbull is the Liberal Party’s “last best option“.
Costello I thinks believes he owes nothing to the LNP or those who voted for him and that it is he who is owed.
Dennis Shanahan did not attempt to justify his Weekend Australian feature of some six weeks ago suggesting that Peter Costello would be there when the Party needed him. Dennis, don’t be coy. We all await to read your insights on what changed so dramatically since that piece. And how about Milne? This pushy journalist has just seen the end of any chance of being a Press Secretary for a putative PM, which would have involved a long stint as Press Secretary to an Opposition Leader.
I agree with your point, BBBm, in that post. However in regards this comment, the idea those books generated “profit” for MP’s is hilarious.
Not one of those listed examples would have netted the author over $10k – and frankly I would bet money on it being closer, if not right on, $5k. Wildly disproportionate to the amount of work going into writing the book.
Publishing niche books like that is not a game you get into for the money. Cred? Yes. Money, you’d do better on the blackjack.
Yes I think you are right too. There’s no doubt that the MPs I mentioned wrote those books as part of their career development. Nevertheless there will usually be an element of financial gain. As you can see from my final sentence, I was really getting at the specific notions that there is some legal problem with writing a book for the purposes of personal enrichment (monetarily or credibility-wise) while sitting as an MP, or that doing so is to do a number on the electorate. I was also tempted to square him up on the ‘employment contract’ line, which The Australian thoughtfully omitted, but why kick a corpse?
BBB
“Well yes Ken @ 8, but there was also no reason (apart from killing potential book sales he’s just killed anyway) Costello couldn’t have reconfirmed he wasn’t interested in the leadership. At the very least, so that his colleagues didn’t have to also look like gibbering idiots in the dark these last few months.”
So….why would you want him to spare them that? Ken is absolutely right. Costello stated his position upfront in November and hasn’t contradicted it since. Meanwhile, both sides of politics – and the MSM and the blogosphere – have indulged in an orgy of speculation that he had absolutely no responsibility for ameliorating.
The ALP engaged in a fevered frenzy of denigration that utterly belied and undermined their public position about his inadequacy for the job: it looked to me like they were scared shitless.
The plaintive wailing from the Libs simply underlined the total inadequacy of the
ludicrous amalgam of Uriah Heap and Walter Mitty who pretends to be leader of the opposition.
The MSM and the blogosphere both churned this non-story endlessly with “respected journos” actually lecturing Costello for his “irresponsibility’ in failing to give them the requisite validation for all their speculative dross.
Tough.
This story is a major does of who gives a flying fuck. And Geoff you’re wrong. if he was person with any honour he would have state categorically that he wasn’t standing. Not that I care. But I suspect the Libs might.
I’m going to repeat what I said on another thread – that’s a Liberal talking point and I don’t see why anyone takes it seriously. It’s the job of politicians to attack their opponents. And I suspect Swan et al were probably enjoying themselves bagging Cossie rather than quivering in their boots.
“that’s a Liberal talking point and I don’t see why anyone takes it seriously.”
If it is a “Liberal talking point” it might be the first thing the Libs have been right about in a long time.
If the government thought that the guy was the craven, failed, useless do-nothing they claim him to be they’d be welcoming the prospect of his ascendancy. Instead, they devoted Question Time after Question Time to his denigration. The fact that he didn’t respond seems to have only increased their anxiety. Swan was no doubt enjoying bagging him but it doesn’t detract from the point.
“If the government thought that the guy was the craven, failed, useless do-nothing they claim him to be they’d be welcoming the prospect of his ascendancy.”
Well they can do that behind closed doors. Why pass up the opportunity to trash the opposition and remind the public of its faults?
BBB
I think it’s much more likely that they’d want to do everything they could to keep Nelson in place for as long as they can. But it doesn’t follow from Nelson’s extreme weakness that Costello would be a success as opposition leader, nor that Labor would fear the prospect.
Geoff, the government said ‘bring him on’ for goodness sake.
I wrote a month or two ago: there was an episode of Today on the Monday AAP/the Wire etc had released ‘the story’ – which included unsourced reports of unnamed Labor members already ‘quivering in their boots’ and flurriedly preparing a dossier on Costello (cause like, after all these years, Peter Costello’s still a mystery to Labor and required a brand new dossier prepared on him) in the very same story – into the news stream.
Today repeatedly stated before every ad break ‘coming up, a report that Labor has already begun production on a TV ad campaign they plan to air immediately if Costello becomes leader’. The actual report never occurred on the show.
That’s commonly known as lightweight propaganda.
Just for the record: does ANYONE actually think Cossie “could have won it”?
I don’t – he had all the mud of history of the Howard govt, with none of the rusted on personal vote. some renewal that would have been! I think Rudd would have won an extra 5-10 seats.
May I humbly suggest a tour bus be organized for LP pundits to Canberra. You can all go up there and kick him in person. Might as well….
“Just for the record: does ANYONE actually think Cossie “could have won it”?”
Against Beazley, yes. Against Rudd, no.
On my honour, a chap wrote
“the ludicrous amalgam of Uriah Heap and Walter Mitty who pretends to be leader of the opposition.”
‘pon my word, sir, if you have a shred of decency left you will apologise forthwith to the shades of Walter and Uriah. You owe it to them.
Of course it has been a petulant and self-indulgent performance, but hasn’t it been fun to watch? All those so-perceptive journos and so-knowledgeable Liberal politicians gobbling about Cossie for months (like the turkeys they are), when Blind Freddy could see it was never going to happen. And consider the effect they’ve had on Liberal Party morale and organisation!
I suppose if I were a Lib I’d be rather cranky with them all. As it is, I’d recommend Orders of Australia to Cossie and all his cargo-cultists for services to left-wing politics.
You cant really blame the commentariat for speculating on Smirker’s motives. The obvious question now is: well what the hell IS he doing in parliament?
My guess is: deep down, he still think the PM ship will somehow be given to him without having to put himself on the line.
Get real. Resign.
Much like the Little Digger I draw the line at the Country Party…but at least they know a bum steer when they see one.
35 Lefty E
“well what the hell IS he doing in parliament?”
Resignation necessitates a decision and he is not well practised in that regard. Howard completely emasculated him. He will have to be pushed.
Probably right wpd.
He’s a sad case really. Classic 2IC schoolboy mentality, hooting from behind the father/leader figure.
Thirteen years of Costello watching in 37 seconds.
Costello wouldnt have won the last election anyway (despite his claims). Australians had had enough of the spin, lies, inhumanity and sole focus on economics that was the hallmark of the Howard/Costello regime. Change is in the air worldwide. Perhaps its better to risk the new than continue down the dark path we’ve been on.
Seeing that the Tip learnt everything from the rodent, language usage is important “I will not nominate or challenge” ” I will leave Parliament at my own choosing” BUT being drafted cajoled riding on a donkey into Jerusalem aka JC are left unsaid or pehaps I am being paranoid anyway he is a lost cause either way Joe public has had enough
Hey, I think even the Liberal Party has had enough. Or maybe they are really really slow learners.
Yep, the Hamlet act has gone on too long even for libs. Here starteth the “buzz off then” leaks http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/12/2362715.htm
Who was that who didnt know when to leave, Smirker?
The real problem is of course that the poor man hasn’t got a better offer, which is really surprising, given the fact that he was the world’s greatest treasurer.
Don’t forget the sterling work he did for Dollar Sweets adrian – surely that’d be worth a position as the oldest junior barrister in the world with some commercial law firm …
OK: a small prize should be offerred to the first citizen who sees the Costello self-hagiography on a remainders table. Any bets on the date?
Before Christmas.
Great line from Mungo Macallum on Q&A last night: Costello’s even too lazy to write his own autobiography.
Cue Minchin’s well practised line in confected outrage – hardest working parliamentarian in the history of the universe, can leap tall piles of budget estimates in a single bound, etc etc etc.