GrodsCorp

Kevin fucking it up

Wednesday 10 October 2007, 8:04 am

The Editor

Categories: Australia Decides '07, Blogosphere

Tags: DeathPenalty, KevinRudd, Labor, Liberal, MeToo, RobertMcClelland

For the past few months some lefty Australian bloggers have been running this graphic on their sites, summing up the hopes of all anti-Liberal voters:

Kevin Rudd’s “me-too” politics have been causing us to roll our eyes for some time but you know it’s reached serious levels when you wake up to this headline splashed across the front of The Age: ‘ME-TOO POLICY MESS’. All because a shadow minister had the audacity to — wait for it — restate official ALP policy. Rudd, getting a sniff of differential between his Party and the government, jumped into damage control mode, slapping down the offending shadow minister, and hitting the airwaves to reassure voters that ‘Labor’ was still spelled L-I-B-E-R-A-L.

Facing criticism from survivors and families of Bali bombing victims, Mr Rudd tried to control the damage by portraying his stance — as on a host of other contentious issues — as being in line with that of the Howard Government.

“On the wider question of the death penalty, the Liberal Party’s policy, like Labor’s policy, is identical, and that is our global opposition to the death penalty.”

As a clearly unimpressed Michelle Gratten said, “The Labor leader’s plan was politically savvy, but leaves a sour moral taste.”

7 Comments

Jeremy (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 11:06 am) #

You know what - at times like this I almost hope Rudd DOESN’T get rewarded for this cowardice by winning the election. If he gets slapped down for being as much a moral pygmy as Howard then maybe the next Labor leader will try actually standing for something.

ALMOST. There are of course important reasons why Howard needs to go even more than Rudd needs to be slapped.
John Surname (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 11:28 am) #

Vote Rudd, then we’ll slap him.
Bruce (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 11:29 am) #

And Rudd always can (and should) be slapped after the election. Regardless of the outcome.
Bruce (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 11:30 am) #

Great minds eh John?
The Editor (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 11:36 am) #

If there were a comments box on voting papers I’d write:

Make no mistake. I’m voting against the coalition, not for Labor.
Bridgit Gread (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 1:31 pm) #

If you want the happy feeling of bitch-slapping Rudd and Howard, there’s always the Rod Quantock theory:

“My dream is for (Prime Minister John) Howard to lose his seat and the Liberals to win the election. Howard having to pack up Kirribili House, while Peter Costello made his acceptance speech, would be the ultimate punishment. I would know there was a god then.”
Mikey (Wednesday 10 October 2007, 10:25 pm) #

I agree. I was appalled by that. Rudd should have reiterated the ALP stance and marked it for the difference it is. That when it comes to the DP it’s not applied for anyone. Especially since he’s all too aware that if we asked for clemency for them and it was granted those Ozzers on death row would likely get the same.