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Wednesday, 3 December 2003

Tone up, tone down?

Latham seems to be saying he’ll tone down his rhetoric somewhat. Yet that may be a worse proposition than maintaining his virulent verbal assaults on Coalition policy.

At least that’s the view of David Burchell in today’s Australian.

Bob Hawke's wit seemed to evaporate over his prime ministership, like a slowly shrivelling fruit. Likewise, the former British Opposition leader Neil Kinnock was a renowned wise-cracker prior to his elevation. As Labour leader, on the other hand, Kinnock was about as boisterous as Eeyore.

Latham's harder task may not be to tame his tongue, but rather to keep it barbed, and to keep the barbs on target. As a student of Labor history he must be well aware of the heavy responsibility on his shoulders. The great trick of political oratory, as one of its finest ancient Roman practitioners well knew, is to project an impression of easy spontaneity in utterance, while measuring every word. We're about to find out whether Latham is up to that rather demanding task.

And Burchell makes this point, overlooked in most tripe written about the potential of leadership contenders:

Nobody in their right mind sits down to read party manifestos, or to watch question time on TV. The key task of the party leader isn't so much to lead as much as to project the political personality of their party. It's a matter of direction rather than detail.

One small example: GWB.

This is the sort of piece the Oz should run more of. Not this guff from rich white lawyer’s wife Janet Albrechtsen:

Last week came the call for a woman to lead the ALP because "it's time". Alas, that tired sales pitch failed and a woman will not lead the ALP. These days, whenever women don't get a senior post, the next question is: why not? The answer is another slogan: discrimination. And from discrimination flows the next feminist shibboleth: regulation.

Not because A Token Lefty disagrees with Janet, but because she doesn’t make reasoned, intelligent arguments. Seems the controversy over last year’s gang rape piece served only to teach her you can manipulate other’s views to fit your own worldview, string together a pieces of anecdotal-at-best ‘proof’ and a blizzard of emotive adjectives and voila! You boost your own profile and become the darling of the far right. Never mind the majority of decent-minded Australians think you should put your hood back on and head home to Tennessee.