ManipuLatham

Mark Latham will now truly do anything to get a headline. He will lie, manipulate, say deliberately offensive things to smear his subject, grandstand, ambush and spew bile all while pursuing a vicious personal vendetta against those he feels have wronged him. No wonder Channel 9 hired him as a political commentator. He's perfect.

His comments regarding Julia Gillard's lack of empathy due to the absence of miniature, half-breed versions of herself can be taken for what they are – garbage, but we must take notice of the reasons why Latham said what he did. Firstly, Mark Latham does not believe that if you don't have children you don't have 'much love in you'. He is not Bill Heffernan. He said that because he wants to hurt Gillard, and hurt her in a very manipulative back-door sort of way.

Some will believe that because of the outrage at his comments, his plan has backfired and achieved the opposite of his intention. It didn't and it hasn't. Latham's intention was not to make everyone think that Julia Gillard is brutal fembot whose emotion chip is on the fritz, but rather to remind everyone that Julia Gillard is not performing the 'traditional' role of her gender and that she is different in that regard to many women in Australia. Outraged or not, every person who read or heard of Latham's comments was reminded that Gillard does not have children and that she is not married, closely followed by the fact that she is an atheist. Mark Latham does not give a shit about any of that, but he knows that there are some people out there that do. He made it as offensive as possible to make sure he got the headline, and the effects are still playing out.

The article was timed with commentary on Julia Gillard's performance in the aftermath of the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi. Gillard did what any PM would do really, she let Bligh (who was actually in charge of managing the crisis) do her thing and offered as much Federal help as possible. The appearance of the Prime Minister in such situations is purely for background support, it was not her place to pull 20 hour days and direct the troops, if she did so she would have just got in the way. The public however, clearly expected a rougher, more emotional response from the PM.

Obvious comparisons were made between her performance and Anna Bligh's, who managed to turn an angry mob of haters into a bunch grudging admirers. The consensus seemed to be that Gillard was not emotionally affected enough by the disaster, she was dressed too neatly, and she didn’t cry. The Australian public and media are still getting used to having a female national leader and such issues are not usually in focus when male leaders deal with disasters. So Latham's article was timed perfectly to add a kick to this sort of analysis. Just when the media and the public are contemplating how a female PM should behave in such situations, he makes sure everyone knows that Gillard doesn't 'fit the mould' as far as a 'woman' goes in this country. In doing so, he hints that the reason Gillard 'performed badly' during the crisis, is that she is out of touch with the values of 'middle Australia' (i.e. all of Australia). He has turned a natural disaster into an opportunity to point out Julia Gillard's marital status and 'wasted' womb; to blow a dog whistle for people he would usually punch in the face.

Offensive, opportunistic, bitter and…pure Latham.