Nick, Broggers may well be a swell guy but once he puts on his politician's hat he becomes another 'snout in the trough'. Like his colleagues he spends most of his time planning raids on the public purse.

You can always tell when an endangered species and a politician are standing on the road; you'll always find skid marks leading up to the endangered species.

I tend to agree with Nick; if we all resigned when we got tanked and said somthing stupid there'd ne no one at work.

I suspect he got caught when countless others - and most in Carrs own party no doubt - have said or thought the same thing about the godd Mrs Carr. And if young John tried to touch up a journalist = who cares

He resigned not because of the content of his utterances or his apparent lechery but becasue he knew it weakened his chances of toppling the ALP next time around; and it weakened his chances becuase for some reason some think - the press think - these lapses in form some how amount to something in the broader scheme of things.

Its heartening to see some one come out in support of Brogden.

Nick,
You might be interested in a piece on New Matilda called Lesson's from the Marble Bar, saying essentially the same things.

Nick refers only to Brogden's inappropriate racist comment about Helena Carr. If that was all that was involved he might have got away with it. But there were also two incidents with female journalists on the same night and Brogden's initial denials that anything untoward had occurred. It was this total packeage which led to his downfall.

Nick,

You raise some issues about politics and perception that seem to be an ongoing part of public debate...we have not yet decided what it is we want from our politicians (although I suspect sage would just like them to stand still!).

Whatever people might think about the "perks" of political life, it is a serious occupation that affects the lives of thousands, sometimes millions, of people. For this we might be rightly interested in charging some one of gravitas and commitment to the task, and we have the ability to make that choice on a regular basis. But what if that person was, for example, found guilty of drinking underage, well before they entered politics? What if they had an affair? Does it make a difference if they are male or female? And if the answer to any of these questions is 'yes', we have to ask ourselves WHY it has an impact on their ability to perform a public service task, and what should be fair game, or not.

It's often easy to forget that we don't have to live our lives under the spotlight the way that people in the public eye do. One might observe that this was a choice made by individuals to enter the public arena, but did they choose for their private lives to become gossip fodder? And who gets to make that decision, the politician, the press or the public?

Is it reasonable to hold politicians accountable for their behaviour in social situations? I can't agree with Nick's assessment that Brogden's behaviour was harmless: you don't say those things unless you mean them on some level, but I would think that many people could empathise with having too much to drink and doing some foolish things: the only difference is that we don't have to see it splashed on the front page of the papers on Monday morning.

I think John Brogden is learning the hard way the truth of the mantra imparted to journalism students around the country: the "talent" is not your friend, and you are not theirs.

I tend to think that Bob Carr missed a great opportunity to turn that rather irresponsible and off color remark by JB into a positive thing.

He could have said something about "If wives of the quality of mine came by mail, there would be no unmarried aussie men" or something.

But I can identify with John Brogden, some times the stuuuupidist things we do are 'done' and NOTHING we can do will ever bring them back, so it behoves all of us feeble and frail men and women to actually try to see past the fault to the person just like us at the other end.

I once was clambering on top of a Hercules transport, and saw a little ring pull thingy, "I wonder what THAT does"... pulled it without thinking..and suddenly an emergency hatch dropped down and almost clouted the Load master below, woops.....
Another time, a Herc had been in for an engine change, after the test flight, I was marshalling it, gave the 'cut engines' signal and watched as one of the 4 props just 'dropped' off the engine and onto the tarmac, some things are more serious than others :)

Lets show some depth and understanding and mutual compassion. Rather than just lurking for the slightest opportunity to bring someone down.