Oh God I miss him

I mean, can you think of anyone else who left school at fifteen who could make himself so vulnerable by, yet still somehow convincingly get away with, calling a Rhodes scholar and Oxford MA an 'intellectual nobody'? It's not as if Abbott's speech or behaviour of late have reflected these qualifications, or indicated much capacity even for logical or consistent -- much less for abstract, rigorous or difficult -- thought. Even his supporters say fondly that he is a bundle of contradictions, almost as though an absence of clarity were a desirable thing in a political leader.

If you read that link you'll see that Keating has also provided an admirably brisk summary of Turnbull's superiority as Opposition leader, and has coined the pungent, nay, scary phrase 'the poor man's Howard', all in one short radio conversation.

Sad waste that his shortish tenure as PM may have been, it's some consolation that these days he feels free to tell us what he really thinks whenever somebody asks him, untrammelled by the restrictions of office.

UPDATE: Oooh look, there's Footage.

You have to wonder what ABC employee chose to describe this as a 'rant', and under what sort of instructions. And you have to wince at that very very telling little Freudian slip right at the very end.

UPDATE #2 (12.43 am CST): Hullo, someone at the ABC website has changed that heading and removed the word 'rant'. Someone, clearly, who also thought it was as suss as anything.