It's a beige new world when politicians are protected from themselves

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday November 7, 2009

Tim Dick

Don Ward isn't usually punched for telling passers-by their shoes need polishing. But on Monday someone took a wayward swing at the Manhattan shoeshiner, yelling: ��Why don't you get an education so you can get a real job!��The altercation dribbled to a conclusion best forgotten �� until the New York Post wrote about it on Tuesday. If a limp fight can make page five of Rupert Murdoch's famous screamer on mayoral polling day, the Big Apple's streets must be really safe.The city's politics has gone the same way. Aside from the scandalous $US90 million ($99 million) spent to secure Michael Bloomberg's narrow re-election, the campaign strategy was "to protect Bloomberg from Bloomberg", a source close to the multibillionaire mayor told The New York TimesCompare that quote to the line in The West Wing, when a stuttering Bartlet administration was invigorated by a decision to ��let Bartlet be Bartlet��.That character could be himself but Bloomberg couldn't. Fact perverts fiction.Of all places, it should be different in New York, where rudeness is as prized as collecting neuroses. If Bloomberg can't be his sharp-tongued, filthy rich self in a race for the mayoralty in the bluntest city on Earth, what hope is there for politicians anywhere else? (Aside from Silvio Berlusconi.)Whenever Paul Keating gets angry, it reminds us that Australian politics has had a lobotomy, although Wilson Tuckey and Bill Heffernan were seemingly truant on surgery day. Keating is a rare public voice of eloquent conviction �� most recently over The Sunday Telegraph's treatment of his socialite daughter.Kevin Rudd mangles English with bureaucratic jargon (a "one-and-a-half track" conference, anyone?) and such metaphoric mongrels it's impossible to believe what he says because we don't know what he's saying.Julia Gillard is more straightforward, but risks another perception: too much polish, not enough table. And capable Penny Wong delivers the party line as if she was on Xanax.We've heard the stories about Malcolm Turnbull unleashed, but rarely do we see it. I would pay per-view to see Turnbull be Turnbull.Surely, he can't poll much lower.Maybe he can. Rudd's don't-scare-the-horses mantra is the dominant Steven Bradbury method of winning elections: do nothing wrong and wait for everyone else to fall over. But a politician lasting a campaign without a single so-called gaffe �� as Bloomberg did �� means you didn't say much at all.We like safe, sane leaders, but this new orthodoxy of easy-listening politics is a tragedy. Shouldn't they speak their mind, not what they read ours to be? Say something compelling? Try a joke?Not if they wish to win, for we seem to crave the interesting only to feed our appetite for something to get passingly angry about.In Australian politics there are few truly divisive issues; capitalism remains good, discrimination bad and even with boat people there's no massive gulf between the main parties. So we scavenge for scraps and gaffes. We search for plain speaking only to attack the speaker.We read likeminded news services, columnists and websites, and rail against opposing thoughts without considering them. One correspondent declared herself so angry with a recent column, she refused to read past my first sentence. Well, why would you?Take this week's experience of the Twitterer Brumplum. He meekly suggested the popular tweets of comedian Stephen Fry were ��boring ... (sorry, Stephen)��.Fry replied that Brumplum's were ��so fascinating I can barely contain my fluids��, before succumbing to self-doubt: ��You've convinced me. I'm obviously not good enough.��Just a few minutes later, Fry added: ��Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around.��His critic swiftly discovered that Fry was right, securing a place on a list of ��internet idiots�� and another of ��web wankers��. The cyber-beating was so intense, Fry called a truce and sympathised with his plight.The case is a neat example of our impulsive new world. Give your honest, reasonable opinion, and be quickly slaughtered. Our increasing impetuousness is helping make politicians beige. We get what we deserve.

© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

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