Celebrity Drink Driving

When this all started out about a week ago, when the entire Commonwealth of Australia heaved that long-awaited sigh of relief that Mark Latham had finally given up his postmodern-dance-cum-brainstorming- exercise-cum-streetfight style of political leadership, I was firnly in the Kevin Rudd camp. Former diplomat, experienced shadow foreign minister, seasoned Lateline performer, and one of the most plain-speaking and comprehensible of the current (fairly poor) crop of federal Labor MPs. But the it took Julia Gillard just three words to haul me over to her side of the party, near the canapés and the bust of Engels. Their impact was slightly delayed—it wasn't till over the weekend that the words of Canberra's answer to Kath Day-Knight really sank in. And I switched sides (something I've been known to do before). And what were those three little words?

Independent

Foreign

Policy

Whisper those words in my ear and I'm yours. No strings attached.

Which kinda raises the question of why I was in the Rudd camp at all, when both he and Bomber are the stauchest "supporters of the US alliance", if I can use that euphemism, in the ALP. Change, perhaps. I have nothing personal against Kim, but I do have a beef with his so-called supporters, like that right-wing cabal of Stephen Smith, Wayne Swan and Stephen Conroy, all three career politicians who wouldn't recognise an unstacked branch if they walked into it. Not that they probably ever have. The worst thing that could possibly happen is that Bomber be elected unopposed.

But I can tell you now, the ALP is that fucked, he probably will. I want Kevin Rudd to run, nonetheless,—make it at least a teensy-weensy bit interesting, maybe a 3-way contest with the redhead in the other corner—but the guy's a wuss. He looks like a wuss and he acts like a wuss so you can bet, whenever he does eventually announce his intentions, that he'll take the wussy option and drop out. Run Kevin, run you bastard.

Something else I found today: hot on the heels of bogan Australia's favourite piece of follicular face furniture, the minging Shannon Noll, blowing 0.11 on the breathalyzer, another notable Aussie has been busted DUI. This time round, New South Wales' best have pulled over Kylie Kwong's minivan and scored another celeb scalp. Her excuse: she'd had a glass of wine four hours earlier, and hadn't eaten. Okay, I am personally familiar with the exaggerated affects of alcohol on an empty stomach— it makes for a cheap night out when eating is cheating—but that must have been one fuck-off fishbowl of a glass of gewürztraminer to get you a reading of 0.07 four hours later. Yes, four hours later.