recalcitrant paul vs. planet janet
Goodness me. There’s a bit of a stoush on the Oz’s website! Janet Albrechtsen wrote a column earlier this week that gave out some advice to Kevin Rudd, and claimed victory in the “Culture Wars”, or argued that they were still going on, or something like that (It’s honestly a little bit hard to tell). Paul Keating has replied today, fairly intemperately, to a side-swipe he recieved in Albrechtsen’s column, and it’s a bit of a companion-piece to his posthumous pot-shot at Paddy McGuinness in the Fin a couple of weeks back (which is still behind the pay-wall, so no link). If it’s less discomfiting for the reader than the McGuinness diatribe, it’s probably because Janet is still very much alive, and able to defend herself.
Anyway, we’ve been in enough trouble for our alleged partisanship lately, so I’ll leave the rights and wrongs well alone, although I will say it’s all pretty entertaining whichever way you slice it. Also, perhaps I’ll risk remarking that there is something to be said for this comment on Albrechtsen’s summoning of the dreaded elites:
Albrechtsen, for her own part, of course, was not part of any elite. The ear of a prime minister and a cabinet for a decade, which finally enjoyed control of both houses of parliament; membership of a clique of journalists, sharing common cause, with unfettered access to the opinion pages of the broadsheet newspapers of the country - nothing elitist about that.
The main reason I’m posting though is to ask a couple of questions. Bear in mind that it’s up there on the Oz website, and that people are commenting furiously, whether they’re supporting PK or JA. The question is: has a current or former Prime Minister ever had an opinion piece published in this manner before, in a “blog-like” format, with the facility for immediate and copious feedback from members of the public? (Be good if people could think of prior examples)
Secondly, does anyone think Keating should start his own snark blog? What could the title be? My nomination is “unrepresentative swill”.
UPDATE: Niall’s take bringeth some more funny.
UPDATE #2: Others take sides in the match of the day. Hangover is barracking for PJK, as (perhaps predictably) are some commenters over on this LP Thread. And justice for all takes a more even-handed approach. I only found one so far that is sticking up for JA, but I’m not going to link to it because the blog as a whole seems excessively concerned with the fate of “the white race” - yowsers!
UPDATE #3 Janet comes back. Honestly it’s just like Gladiators.
UPDATE #4 Like Ken in the comments below, Jason Soon over at Catallaxy is not exactly supportive of Janet, but thinks Keating’s ego is the main player in this stoush.
unrepresentative swill - the blog we had to have.
It would also no doubt contain a beautiful set of numbers and be L-A-W law because it was in PJK’s B-L-O-G blog. Does Albrechtsen’s unashamed Tory nonsense redeem/excuse Keating’s self-obsessed determination to secure his place in posterity at any cost? Does PJK actually admit that he ever misjudged anything at all during his political career, except perhaps Bob Hawke’s willingness to hand over the leadership?
You’re right, about Keating’s self-assurance Ken - I’ve yet to hear Keating confess to a mistake since he left office, or indeed ever. (The closest he’s ever come, I think, was having a go now and then at the Whitlam Government’s economic performance, the self-same government in which he was briefly a Minister. But mainly that was about asserting the Hawke/Keating Governments’ preeminence as economic managers). The inability to concede error one of the traits he shares with his successor, along with a deeply tribal attachment to his own side of politics. I think that Kevin’s learned enough from Peter Beattie to know that apologising early and often is a good strategy for keeping the electorate on side.
Is it justified? I’ve thought about it and… it’s really difficult to take any of it at all seriously. It’s a bit like a Punch and Judy show. I suspect Keating’s actually given up on posterity, and figures that the Labor victory is his cue to let loose on anyone who’s annoyed him over the last decade. No one expects the Labor leader to answer for him any more, so it’s game on.
Albrechtsen is nothing if not a provocateur, so she can hardly complain. And it is interesting to see a former PM write something so, um, engaged. I’m inclined to bust out the popcorn!