How’s this for a theory about why the ABC brought the Enough Rope interview
forward – because it said very little. What we got was dull, dull, dull
– as dull as the life of house husband Latham seems to be.

Latham
has had some worthwhile comments on the life of politics to make in the
little we’ve seen of the diaries so far. Presumably there’s more.
Unfortunately, though, this side of The Latham Diaries has been
swamped by a sea of boring bile – and it’s already boring even though
the “official” extracts haven’t even appeared yet.

The ABC
presumably recognised this. Sane human beings were already switching
off the story last night. Political bitchiness? Sore losers? Yawn.

We’re already suffering from Latham Diaries
overkill. Their more valuable parts are being ignored. And Andrew
Denton is right: Latham’s story is sad. Equally sad is the story of
that other broken, too-much-too-soon opposition leader, John Hewson.
There are some pretty nasty aspects of our political culture that we
should be taking a long, hard look at.

And seeing an intelligent
and interesting bloke who could really contribute to the debate throw
in the towel and decide to do bugger all while making himself
unemployable and untouchable is pretty damned sad, too.