Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Thank God someone's finally said it, and a man to boot

Take it away, Jonathan Green at The Drum:

Every 48 hours or so Kevin pops up to be dignified yet deeply pathetic. The Prime Minister is continually tackled, in almost every media appearance in recent days. Radio station 4BC this morning asks if she "feels guilty". A demur variant on "blood on your hands" I guess, the Hawke/Carleton confrontation that followed the shafting of Bill Hayden, a routine political machination.

Guilt, or blood on your hands... is there something of a semantic gender divide in the two concepts? Did people ask Kevin Rudd if he felt guilty for rolling Kim Beazley? Did the press pack hound Tony Abbott for some display of remorse after his rout of Turnbull? Did Turnbull have to offer hugs to Brendan Nelson?

Is it because we assume that being, you know, a woman, Gillard has not only a greater capacity for empathy but some sort of obligation to express it? Just wondering.

Somebody give that man a Balfours Frog Cake.

(Not too sure about the cost of pearl necklaces, though. I wouldn't have thought ... Oh, never mind.)

10 comments:

Ann ODyne said...

Thank you for the Balfour's Frog Cake, truly deserving of it's Official Icon status.
I enjoy the reading at The Drum too - Deveny shredding Arndt was the full 15-rounds.

This old world is a new world said...

I think the best thing about that wikipedia article is the caption describing the "imitation frog cakes" in the Acland St window. Are they saying that it's only that one bakery that can make them?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Thanks, Ms O'Dyne, will go back at once to check the Deveny.

Stephanie, ma chere, mais non, pas du tout. Only that Balfours were the original and best. ;-)

M L Jassy said...

It was all getting a bit too 'out damn spot' for my liking.

senexx said...

I would like to point out that Laurie Oakes in his Prime Minister Gillard interview asked "the blood on hands" question

Lucytartan said...

He picked up on the blood on hands image but is perpetuating the shafting one which in its own way is just as gross.

David Irving (no relation) said...

If you need some pearls to clutch, I have some that belonged to my late mother you can borrow. (Saving them for potential daughters-in-law.)

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

DI, that is very kind. But I do in fact have some nice pearls of various kinds. Keep the maternal jewellery safe.

Link said...

One man in my life is overjoyed and has cut out photographs from newspaper to stick on fridge and journal. One of Ms Gillard looking heavenward and smiling with the GG grinning on and another in Parliament with Abbott looking woe-is-he in background. Suffice to say bloke one, is well- pleased. Bloke two, one in immediate vicinity, tells me men everywhere are justified in feeling threatened by recent developments. Wny feel threatened I asked--that's not the point. And if they feel threatened such a reaction can only lead to the escalation of fear and subsequent loathing cycling back into repression. I was a bit flummoxed at his reaction and could not find an argument convincing enough to get him past it or 'demonstrate' the irrationality of this reaction. First friend tells me, me mate Phil Adams was none too pleased either at the rolling of Kev and thought it treacherous and disloyal--but I guess he has an excuse being of a certain generation. Won't be long now anyway until male No.2 is infected with a certain parasite carried by the cat. HEH.

Ann ODyne said...

but the Electorate is not accused of having The Lady Macbeth's when a Government is toppled?.

re Link's dumb pal -
'men everywhere are justified in feeling threatened by recent developments' - she should have asked him if he ever thought All Women felt 'threatened' by all or any of the male PM's through history. silly man.