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Last updated on July 24th, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Mark Lithium, whose diary of hate is selling extremely well, spent yesterday playing media tag with current Labor leader Kim Beazley. At issue: whether Beazley is a cuddly, avuncular fellow, much beloved in the neighbourhood, or a low, stoatish type, given to trading in vile rumour. In other developing developments:
* Glenn Milne (official Latham nickname: “more friends in Canberra than me”) promises a surprise ending to the Wilton suicide saga:
One day, the real story of Latham’s role in the Wilton suicide will be revealed.
* Latham repeats his request that Australia become a pansy state, like New Zealand:
There is no terrorist threat to New Zealand that has been identified but (there is) one here. If you go supporting bad American policy you make yourself a bigger target and you stir dissent in your own country.
(Silent Running delivers a response.)
* Former senator Graham Richardson predicts interest in Latham’s book will fade once “the mob” works him out.
* Ex-Latham fan Mike Seccombe notes Latham’s staggering “capacity for self-absolution”, and blames himself for the blameless one’s rise:
It was all my fault, I’m afraid. My pivotal role in inflicting Mark Latham on the Australian public can no longer be ignored.
* Gough Whitlam offers his explanation for Latham’s decision never to speak to him again.
* NSW Labor secretary Mark Arbib threatens legal action:
Mr Arbib took offence at Mr Latham’s diary account of a lunch the two men shared at the Azuma restaurant in Sydney on November 1 last year – three weeks after Mr Latham led Labor to a bruising election loss.
Mr Arbib said Mr Latham had written “lies and fantasy” in The Latham Diaries, which went on sale yesterday. “The only things he got right were mine and the restaurant’s names. I’m amazed he could recall that, given he drank two bottles of red wine.”
* ACTU secretary Greg Combet denies Latham’s claims that he’d deceived unionists.
* No harm done, writes Gerard Henderson:
It’s not as if Latham’s opinion carries much credibility.
* Kevin Rudd’s leadership credentials are questioned by Latham:
He’s one of those blokes who … sort of prances around behind the starting gate but the attendants can never push him into the barrier. He’s always a late scratching at the barrier. I don’t think it’s a hoof injury – I think it’s something in … the heart department where he just won’t have a go. So he parades himself around. One day he’s going to have to push himself into the barrier because in politics you should either have a go or be a permanent scratching. I’m not too fussed about old Kevvie Rudd.
* Latham’s new-found contempt for the working classes is revealed:
The diaries show Mr Latham regards it as a mistake to promote aspirational politics. “I wanted working people to enjoy a better standard of living, but had assumed that as they climbed the economic ladder, they would still care about the community in which they lived, and take heed of the interests of others, especially the poor and disadvantaged.
“Instead, as people have moved into middle-class affluence, they have left their old, working-class neighbourhoods behind and embraced the new values of consumerism.”
* According to The Age, Latham’s pension entitles him to $76,622 per year for the rest of his life. Supplied by greedy consumerist scum.
* A new extract from Latham’s diaries accuses his first wife of extra-marital fondling:
For me, the tipping point was Gabrielle’s behaviour at an ALP function at Campbelltown RSL in August 1997 – fondling another person under the table while I was sitting next to her.
Then she told me about her nursing days. Hooley dooley, if I had known this, I wouldn’t have married her in the first place. She kept me in the dark for a decade.
* At least one person—Mark Latham, as it happens—declares Mark Latham to be a hero:
Their frustration with me is that they can’t keep me in the cone of silence. I’m akin to a whistleblower telling the truth.
* Peter Hartcher points out those harmed by Latham’s brave truth-telling:
The unforgivable injury that Latham commits, and commits repeatedly, is the way that he claws at the wholly innocent bystanders – the spouses and families of his former colleagues.
* Louise Dodson remarks on Latham’s fondness for his wicked right-wing rivals:
He displays an often grudging admiration for the Liberal Party and his political opponents, especially Costello. He scatters his diaries with disparaging undergraduate references to the Tories and to business, while praising the political talents of Howard and Costello. Latham has no doubt that Costello, if he succeeded Howard, would beat Simon Crean, then Labor leader.
* And hilarious Phillip Adams claims the whole deal is a forgery:
Poor Mark, heavily sedated, knows nothing of the political upheaval caused in his name. Should he ever escape from his constraints and the padded cell, you can imagine how upset he’ll be.
I wanted working people to enjoy a better standard of living, but had assumed that as they [became middle class], they would [not become middle class]…
Beastly proles!
But seriously, where does he think the existing middle class came from, and why did he ever think people who upwardly-mobilized more recently were more likely to retain some kind of mystical laborite race memory than those who joined the middle class a generation earlier?
Jesus. He thinks the working class are Good and the middle class are Bad, okay, that’s dumb enough, but did he think these traits were genetic, too? Or what?
I can’t say his thinking is confused, because it doesn’t even resemble thinking. I don’t even know what to call it. It’s mindboggling.
Posted by Professor Froward on 09/19 at 04:19 PM • permalink
I’m akin to a whistleblower telling the truth.
“Akin”? As in, “close but no cigar”.
Posted by Professor Froward on 09/19 at 04:22 PM • permalink
It’s the kind of thinking that presumes that whatever “the masses” might ever do, it’s never the result of normal, average people doing the best they can with what they have. It’s always some kind of conspiracy, where one class consciously wars against another class, always holding clandestine meetings in underground bunkers under the manicured lawns in the gated communities or in the back alleys of the red-light districts, always fighting first and foremost for the group identity and class solidarity– never for the comfort and safety of one’s family or anything boring like that.
It’s amazing the theories that people come up with about humanity when they are paid enough not to have to identify with the rest of the species.
Posted by Brian Tiemann on 09/19 at 05:58 PM • permalink
Interesting isn’t it. When Latham was an up-and-comer we heard about his intellect and the strength of his ideas – not just from his own side but also from conservative commentators. But to me his ideas look simplistic and not particularly well thought out.
He looks like the classic case of someone educated beyond their intellectual capabilities – a common problem of many of the left.
It’s like the Boys From Brazil.
Latham was their Gough clone, part mutant, part robot, part zombie, programmed from (near) birth to lead the master raceparty, but the programming failed and he’s run amok. His hallucinatory brainwashed jabberings need to deciphered, and they are still occasionally punctuated by artifacts of the brainwashing, “I am your Ruler. Kill. Destroy.”
It’s not a pretty sight, but there’s some truth buried in it all, for the shrewd observer.
This Latham going supernova drama is making your job too easy and could dangerously undertax your faculties. I propose that you start a vigorous exercise regimen to maintain your edge. The problem is finding suitable material, what with the Sheehans, Krugmans and Kingstons of the world getting easier and easier to pick off. Anyone out there know where to find intellectually challenging leftist thought?
Tommy
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 09/19 at 08:32 PM • permalink
O/T Mark Latham on Liz Jackson:
“For the sake of the campaign, I lifted my seven-year ban on Four Corners. Another mistake. It put me through the tedium of a Liz Jackson interview, the most self-obsessed, repetitive journalist I have come across … and that’s saying something. This wasn’t an interview. This was her insisting she was right and I was wrong, and trying to make that point 25 times. You know the type: upper-class background, thinks she’s an expert on poverty and all things Labor, thinks the interview is really about her …”
Latham got that right.
“Anyone out there know where to find intellectually challenging leftist thought?”
Haven’t seen hide nor hair of any for many years. Let me know if you find any. I’m looking for unicorns too. I think they are in the same hiding place.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 09/19 at 09:35 PM • permalink
Michael Lonie — Actually, unicorns have some useful insights into global warming.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 09/19 at 10:04 PM • permalink
Latham latest: still certifiably paranoid, insane and treacherous. Where are the guys with the white coats, butterfly nets and straitjackets when you need them?
Wonder if his political diaries will be available here in the USA? The excerpts you’ve presented here are absolutely hysterical. If nothing else, Latham’s rantings give Americans a preview of what a Howard Dean presidency would look like…
Hooley dooley, this thing’s turning into a sex soap opera. It’s priceless!
Gabrielle: he was most sexually inexperienced 22-year old I ever met.
Latham: she was fondling some guy under the table [maybe he didn’t know about hand jobs]
Latham: nurses they’re all sluts.
Latham: I could have been a banker. John Laws: Instead of which he turned out a wanker. Beazley: I couldn’t say that John, but you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.
PS: Watch out for national strike by nurses.
- JamesP: Who?
I will be queueing up for my copy of the Latham diaries. I don’t generally buy political bios, but it’s about time I started my new library. (Just got my copy of Robert Spencer’s Politically Incorrect History of Islam and the Crusades. YAY!)Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 09/20 at 12:26 AM • permalink
Seems Mark has a thing for (kiddy) fiddlers, fondlers and (maybe) fetishes of the bondage varitey. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Posted by ozconservative on 09/20 at 01:53 AM • permalink
Ok, pardon me while I rant for a minute.
I am absolutely fed up the repeated leftist assertion that those with rightist politics and their supporters are in some way “more selfish” and leftists aren’t.
BULLSHIT.
The diaries show Mr Latham regards it as a mistake to promote aspirational politics. “I wanted working people to enjoy a better standard of living, but had assumed that as they climbed the economic ladder, they would still care about the community in which they lived, and take heed of the interests of others, especially the poor and disadvantaged.
“Instead, as people have moved into middle-class affluence, they have left their old, working-class neighbourhoods behind and embraced the new values of consumerism.”
Ok, in my experience the more affluent people become the more generous they are, there are exceptions of course, but this is a generalisation. So I will have to back it up with some logic.
Here is a heads up to any lefties reading this, Left of center politicians volunteering to use their position in power to use other people’s money to further some cause they believe in (poverty, race inequality, protecting cute fluffy animals) is notgenerous. In fact in some cases it is actually quite selfish. Likewise for rock stars and actors (or anyone else) doing it too.
Rightists believe that generosity is something more akin to donating your own money to a charity that you believe in.
As people become more affluent the financial concerns that poorer people have become less prevalent. People are only able to be their most generous towards others when they fell most secure and confident about their own situation first. This in turn enables them to voluntarily donate their time and money personally. The fact that it is voluntary is important, they are doing so out of a genuine desire to help, not because some self-righteous politician forced them to using state power.
Likewise it not generous to guilt-trip other people into “being more community minded” as lefties like to say.
Fact is, as people “climb the economic ladder” most remain just as caring about the poor and the disadvantaged, but they want to be free to care using private charities that they support.
They resist attempts by others to “make” them become more charitable because it should be something they do of their own free will. Not because they are more selfish.Having typed this all out and edited it, the desire to rant has now subsided, thankyou for your time. 🙂
My biggest regret is for Whitlam, he believed that his adopted son Latham would be able to do something he never achieved: run a stable government. Perhaps he also had the belief that a Latham government would be able to serve a full term without having to call an early election. Instead Whitlam’s rise and fall is much like Latham’s, only over a period of months and not decades. At least Whitlam alone will have the privilege of being a Labor martyr to some cause or revolution no gives a toss about, while Latham’s stain on Federal politics will be remembered for resurrecting the career of Kim Beazley.
- Now, finally, maybe out of sheer embarrassment at being so one-eyed, naive and gullible, Mike Seccombe will finally have found something to wipe that dumb-arse smile off his face (very poor attempt to cover up your foolishness, by the way – Mike!)
As for Richo’s prediction, he’s confusing Latham’s diaries with his own useless contribution. At least Latham provides a bottomless pit of material for the country’s armchair psycho-analysts.Posted by pick-your-pun on 09/20 at 07:42 AM • permalink
…and, another thing: the ABC (& SBS) seem to come out of it relatively unscathed. What does this suggest?
Posted by pick-your-pun on 09/20 at 07:44 AM • permalink
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“Instead, as people have moved into middle-class affluence, they have left their old, working-class neighbourhoods behind and embraced the new values of consumerism.”
Workers deciding to leave the lefty plantation? Boo-frickin’-hoo, Mark.