Beware the parliamentary sketch writer


Annabel Crabb, the Sydney Morning Herald's political sketch writer (a breed of journalist who take a slightly off centre view of events in Canberra but regularly manage to inform far better than their supposedly less humorous colleagues), is among the nominees in the Commentary, Analysis, Opinion and Critique section of this year's Walkley journalism awards. The chosen contribution from a host of stories written during the last year is the column in which she dubbed the then-opposition leader a Ruddbot. Now that the man is Prime Minister the description looks more apt than ever.
As if to celebrate the nomination, Ms Crabb this morning provides another wonderful insight into the character of the national leader describing him as now speaking "with the clipped air of a military tactician." Kevin Rudd's new enemy is that strange beast he calls "extreme capitalism" which, as the author notes, is not defined but, much like the term "militant Islam", extreme capitalism "coalesces our feelings of anger and condemnation, without offending anyone actually in earshot."
The rubbishing of the Prime Ministerial rhetoric goes on in wonderful fashion.
The danger for Mr Rudd is not that people will have one quick chuckle while reading the Herald but that pointing out all his meaningless references to strategies for action agendas will persuade people that he really is on the verge of becoming a somewhat pompous figure of fun.

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