Pulling Your Legacy

I think it can generally be acknowledged that arguments between individuals, conducted after a particular incident or period, as to who was right and who was wrong during said incident or period are boring. The fact that I mentally switched off halfway through that sentence is testament to the boringness of such situations. No one likes the sound of people bitching at each other over things that are past and unchangeable. Its pointlessness is amplified by how inevitable it is, particularly when the result of the incident/period is ambiguous and the high ground on the subject is therefore up for grabs.

When these arguments take place between retired politicians, usually former leaders, a new level of boredom is achieved as the nobody-cares pissing contest spills into the media and fouls the pages of already foul rags. Again, like so many things in politics, all sides are at fault and have recent examples.

Six or so months ago it was Hawke and Keating going at it. Not so subtle jibes were directed at each other's supposed mental states during the period in question, both desperately jockeying for credit from the successes and eagerly dolling out blame for the cock-ups. The jibes all had notes of warning in them, two people who obviously know many secrets about each other, threatening to reveal all in hardcover for $49.95. A book started the argument, and no doubt a future book will continue it.

Now it's Howard and Costello's turn to wop them out and cross swords, fighting over a legacy no one but the sad and loserish will take note of. The whole idea of building a legacy post government is childish and inherently egotistical. It conjures the image old men, sitting together at a retirement home for the politically insane, routinely soiling themselves while trading barbs about each other's fiscal discipline. Why this has to happen in the media is beyond me.

There is also the obligatory controversial crack at someone who was not expecting it. A cheap-ass blindside of someone everyone presumed you liked to add a bit of spice to book sales. I'm not particularly offended that Howard has claimed that Jeff Kennett was secretly a union-loving, commie-sympathising jar of wet-ones, but why has this been brought up other than to start a fight that produces free media for Johnny's book? Well for starters it's bullshit, so who cares? Controversy sells, so make some.

In ten years' time it will be Rudd and Gillard going at it, each blaming the other for Peter Garrett and who almost let Tony Abbott become Prime Minister. The only winners are Harper Collins and Random House.