Uh oh

No doubt every word of this report on David Marr's Quarterly Essay on Kevin Rudd is true; I don't know what the stance of the child in the photograph says to you, but I know what it says to me, and I have in my time known a few chronically angry men very well. But you have to ask yourself whether the kinds of people who read (never mind write) the Quarterly Essay would allow even such a damning portrait to drive them in the direction of a conservative government. (Has anyone read it yet? What did you think?)

David Marr would have thought very carefully through all the possible consequences of this essay. But it's clear from all his work that his first commitment as a journalist is to the truth, based on evidence, as he sees it. So while it might be a matter of knowing that disenchantment with Rudd is far more likely to push his previous supporters further to the left (and into the waiting arms of the Greens; Bob Brown must be starting to think it's Christmas), it could also be a matter of letting the fallout fall where it may.

And it may, of course, fall into that empty fruit bowl.