Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club.
Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war.
I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm. [Source]
Senator Brown also thinks that a far more important electoral issue is the proposed Federal Government plans to approve the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania before the upcoming election.
ADDIT: Outfox pointed out in comments on the last Rudd scandal thread that it’s important not to allow the timing of this news to distract us from the appalling steamrollering of the Senate 
with respect to the NT Emergency Legislation, and that Labor has been shamefully silent on the whole regarding this legislation. It’s worth riding my Balance The Senate hobbyhorse again, with links to some policy statements from the Australian Democrats and Australian Greens regarding the NT legislation, and particularly Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett’s own blogging on the issue.
I don’t know that I agree with Bob Brown. Everyone is laughing this off. Rudd did a lot of harm as does every John who walks into a strip club. I hate the way this normalizes the abuse of women. I am completely unsurprised that this is seen as a minor issue compared to war. More and more Iraqui women are turning to prostitution to survive. But hey, that’s their choice right? Bah I’m adding Beatty, Snowden and Rudd to my list of irredeemable misogynists. Fuck them. If this fed government changes it will be like changing the colour of the wallpaper.
Su, have you heard the latest? The owner of Scores says that as soon as Rudd realised it was a strip club rather than a sports club he wanted to leave, and ended up doing so without finishing his drink.
I thought this story was hugely fishy right from the start, and it looks increasingly like the editor of the NY Post thought it would be really funny to take Rudd unknowingly to a strip club and freak out the square, which is exactly what the story has been in journo-gossip circles since 2003 until Milne tried to pass Rudd off as some sort of sleazy groper.
I agree with you that the general response that going to a strip club is just what normal red-blooded blokes do is troubling in many ways, but that is a separate question from what Rudd actually did do.
I heard an audio clip on the midday news- I take it it was the owner of Scores. It is fishy. Rudd says he was too tanked to remember , now he left before he finished his beer? Regardless of what happened, it doesn’t change my opinion of the labor apologists. (I should have said Warren Snow , not Snowden). Beatty, in particular sickened me. I am as eager as anyone to see this gov go. I just hate that the alternative is not much better.
Your point about the senate is the key one though. No government should have this much power. The whole NT legislation debacle is deeply depressing.
I think your chronology is off, Su – he was pissed before he ever got to the strip club, remember?
Anyway, this whole scandal is a beat-up, but Rudd generally is too much of a “me-too”-er to be given open slather with the Senate, and the Libs have certainly proven that they can’t be trusted with it.
Time for everyone to do a bit of research on their local Dems/Greens parliamentary candidates and see who they can best support.
Su – with you re any bloke who goes to a strip club. But they ARE NOT the only alternative if the electorate would take the trouble to do as T/T suggests and research your local Reps candidates – even a bad Independent is better than a party hack of whatever pale shade of fawnish beige.
However it’s in the Senate that the discontent of ‘neither Tweedledum nor Tweedledumber’ can most realistically affect the status quo, as long as we vote our own prefences BELOW the Thick(sic!) Black line.Let us never again repeat 2004 giving both Houses to the government.
I wouldn’t quite go that far amphibious. Bad independents can be screwy indeed. Brian Harradine was an independent and did dreadful harm to both indigenous and reproductive rights for example.
Careful research of the candidates is the key, but most people simply don’t care enough.
I’m in a depressingly safe Nat seat, so my lower house vote gets swamped but I always vote below the line too. What I meant tigtog, and I know I am being pedantic, was that the owner’s story doesn’t really gel with Rudd’s claim of being too drunk to recall anything at all; that doesn’t suggest the level of awareness or judgment required to leave. Having twice gotten Tony Snowdon’s name wrong though I am going to cite lingering flu symptoms for my complete inability to express anything clearly today. Like you say it is a beatup and it seems to be doing Rudd more good than harm. Poor Milne, he must be going spare. It was not long ago that Julian Burnside was talking about using the trade practices act to compel politicians to be truthful; off the planet maybe but it is tiring trying to sort out dissembling from withholding some of the facts from outright porkies.
Harradine was able to get his ‘Dick for Wik’ trade-off, and worse, only because he held the balance of power.
Had there been many, or any, others, he’d have been irrelevant, eg when the Dems were a force of hope.
(TigTog – Acknowledging that I lack subtlety, which i find tiresome & highly ineffective against Teh Powerstructure) I’d rather lots of ‘bad’ (ie dumb, venal, insane,wotever)independents over party hacks because they would be unlikely/unable to vote en bloc for their obsessions but, equally, would temper the the majors, who would have far more in common with each other which is what i find most depressing about the current situation.
Of course, I’d prefer MPS who were intelligent, decent, compassionate, generous, trustworthy, visionary, imaginative, funny, sexy, interesting, but i live in OZ.