Nine days ago The Weekend Australian ran a cartoon by Nicholson in which Kevin Rudd was represented by two legs protruding from the posterior of Barack Obama. Two days ago Nicholson depicted Rudd as lost under the dinner table at the G20 banquet. In this same edition of The Weekend Australian an editiorial rebuked those who had taken offence at Nicholson's crudity. The gist of it was that "lefties" wouldn't cop their poster-boy being attacked.
I was annoyed by both cartoons, not because of crudity or being a thin-skinned "lefty"; the cartoons were simply baseless. Rudd has not distinguished himself with any particular sycophancy towards Obama and has been less Obameffusive than many other heads of state or government. As for the banquet, the seating was absolutely according to the international conventions of protocol and, in terms of personal favour or otherwise, signifies nothing.
The article in the same edition which dwelt on Rudd's "slight" was, for the same reason, a complete waste of space. If anyone is pushing a barrow here, it's not "lefties".
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Today's Australian got stuck into Kevin over the new wave of boat people, pointing out it was the 13th arrival since Labor came to power and "softened" the treatment of refugees.
It seems the gloves are off.
I don't think it will bother Labor too much though, and they obtain balance through the Fairfax broadsheets.
I'm always interested in trying to figure out to what extent Rupert Murdoch is pulling the strings on these things and how it might serve his purposes. I'm wondering now whether he'll profit from rubbishing Rudd.
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