Friday, April 27, 2007

Cranking up the insincerity

Rudd silent on economy, says PM. 27/04/2007. ABC News Online

Kevin Rudd has to resort to the patently silly forms of attack on conservative politics and the PM for the sound bites on TV tonight:

He says a Labor government would set a new standard.

"We stand for community, we stand for country, we stand for the planet," he said.

"By contrast, the conservatives stand for the three great ennobling values: me, myself and I."

Oh, bring me a bucket.

And as for Howard:

"Mr Howard doesn't really believe in a single idea which didn't appear on black and white television."

This is good in its own way. Resort to such platitudes, which we all know Rudd doesn't genuinely believe (he has the personal friendship with Joe Hockey to illustrate that,) means that he is should start to be seen as cranking up the insincerity for marketing purposes. He is thus shown to be just another politician, which may be the start of of a drop in his puzzling popularity.

Speaking of insincerity, Tony Jones on Lateline last night, interviewing a Kevin Rudd who seemed to me to be unusually giggly, missed a golden opportunity in this section:

KEVIN RUDD: ...... Mr Howard's not interested. We could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I'm advised, by up to 30 per cent by affecting, by implementing, such an effective demand-side management approach. And lastly, what do we do about clean coal and what do we do about hybrid cars and those sorts of things? We've got clear cut policies on the table for the future. What do we get from Mr Howard? Resounding silence, because he's rooted in the past.

What you do, Kevin, if you really believe in them, is drive one yourself. (Not that Tony Jones made that rejoinder).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what is Kevin Rudd saying? That he watches Big Brother? Ah, I know he watches Biggest Looser!

Seriously, Rudd is really green and just a baby. Whenever he's put under a little pressure the ole' glass jaw kicks in. Yep, that's the guy I want representing us on a world stage!

As far as his remarks on climate change go check this out global warming is it a con?.

Apart from that he is just the scripted voice of a marketing team still driving a party that cant get a policy together and where's their finance minister? Does anyone know who he is? One of the worlds highest rated economies and we hardly see the person they plan to have in charge of it, go away labor come back in four years.

TimT said...

The Rudder offers a slightly different version of Howard - he's frequently cool, dispassionate and restrained. Latham before him scored some dramatic wins in his first few weeks in power, but after that it was all personal drama. Rudd seems a more tenacious leader than Latham, but seems to be able to get the public onside occasionally. I don't know whether attacks on Howard are so offputting to people, every leader - quite rightly - comes in for criticism.

But this is interesting!

We could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I'm advised, by up to 30 per cent by affecting, by implementing, such an effective demand-side management approach.

Demand-side management approach? What the hell does he mean by that? Caps on emissions, perhaps? Whatever, interfering in either the supply or demand side of the market is just simplistic socialist economics. I'd like to think Tony Jones picked him up on that, too, but it probably didn't happen!

Steve said...

As to the nature of the attack on Howard being "stuck in the 50's", what annoys me is that this has been tried for about 8 years already and hasn't stuck. (And just how 50's-ish are Howard's IR laws the ALP is spending so much time worrying about?)

You would have thought that Rudd/Labor could come up with a better line.