Tom Switzer fishes a rather smelly sock out of the gratuitous comparison department in today’s Australian … whoops, I mean Age:
At the height of the 1956 US presidential election, Adlai Stevenson said of Richard Nixon: ”This is a man of many masks. Who can say they have seen his real face?” Could the same thing be said about Kevin Rudd?
…
The friction of playing the role of conviction warrior while being in reality a malleable politician was one of many reasons for Nixon’s downfall.
Will this also destroy Kevin Rudd?
Clearly the irony of drawing parallels between a Labor Prime Minister going through a rough patch and the disgraced US President whose surname has become a by-word for corruption and abuse of power was too delicious a fruit not to partake in.
Sadly, its also a bit absurd. The “man of many masks” line has some legs, but the rest of the comparison tanks.