Ah Belly, you support this man then?

This is almost like the Fraser Whitlam event.

Sacked at the behest of the USA, a soft toppling of yet another government that didn't think quite as Uncle Sam did, so the theory goes for some, and it sounds attractive at first blush.

Now we find this turd-beetle rushing over to the US embassy drinks troupe, spilling his guts on everything within his own political party, and what? following the US instructions to knife Rudd and have him dumped?

Of course, the US were hoping that, with the help of those unprincipled journalists at the Oz beavering away to promote Abbott as hard as they could, that Gillard would have no chance of winning.

Sadly (yet also how pleasing too) Gillard won and Abbott failed, just, to win the prize.

Well may they say 'God save the Queen', because nothing will save Senator Arbib from the wroth of the party rank and file (not that there are any anymore, of course).

Fancy that, a turncoat, a Judas, a 40-pieces-of-silver man.

And I thought he was such a trustworthy looking man.

Makes me wonder what all those others that go to drinks at the embassy talk about.

Thank God for Wikileaks.

Belly,

"...on what charges, for what crime".

I believe some American lawmakers are investigating avenues of achieving a way to take care of that technicality (stay tuned)....same thing seems to be happening in Sweden.

TBC,

Thanks for the GetUp link.

The Oz has a story on Senator Judas Arbib. The comments are worth reading.

A mixture, for sure, but oh my, what anger there is at how Judas has behaved:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/labors-mark-arbib-defends-acting-as-a-labor-insider-for-the-us-embassy/comments-fn775xjq-1225968085419

I bet the Minister For Uranium Mining and Satisfying Foreign Interests will have been saying a few things he hopes will never come out into public, while enjoying a High Ball over at the US Party Central on Embassy Row in Canberra.

I agree, TBC,
Arbib joins the ranks of the most despicable politicians the Labor Party has ever produced. What a mob of toadies! Can anyone imagine Curtin or Keating or even Hawk sidling up to the Yanks, or even the British, the way these arse-wipes do: Rudd, Gillard, Arbib..
One expects that kind of thing from the conservatives, Menzies having led the way so unctuously, and of course the "man of steel" in the modern era, but the ALP rank and file must be feeling irredeemably soiled by this disgraceful want of political fibre in today's motley crew of gutless traitors to Labor!
In answer to your originary question, Poirot, I don;t believe the digital communication age will change the nature of diplomacy; this little storm in a tea-cup will be co-opted and end up serving (by adding aggregate to the mix) rather than challenging the status quo.
The system cannot be reformed, only overthrown

Dear Squeers,

I have no doubt that it will be co-opted to a greater or lesser extent. but I'm also getting a sense that ordinary people have suddenly realised the significance of the lens that Wikileaks has provided. The ability to see what is usually hidden has the potential to change the dynamics of the relationship between a nation and its people.
Just how this knowledge can be utilised to alter the present hegemony is the question at hand.

On a lighter note, Annabel Crabb wrote this entertaining article on "couldn't give a hoot" Kevin Rudd and Co.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/09/3089283.htm?site=drum

I am not sure what you all expect? The only thing i have found surprising to this point is how uncoordinated and lacking in conviction the attack from government has been. I really must give it to Bush and Howard, the attack would have been much more focused and concise. BY now we would all have been convinced Assange was a genuine terrorist.
So far all the whole episode has done for me is put the final coffin nails into my already shaky faith in the current political position. So far the only comment from an Australian politician that made any sense came from the control freak Mr Rudd. At least he had the balls to tell the Uass that the problem was of their own making so fix it without taking more political prisoners.
The whole leaks issue has only shown how close we are to a complete break down in real free democratic values. Hitler was truly only a couple of generations early, these days we would vote him in and call him a world statesman.
It is sad the way things have gone and i can only hope that we can manage to keep voting for a divided government in hope that some form of sanity will soon return, go the Greens and independents keep the shaky ground under the government. If this keeps going it will be RIP ALP for a very long time. I shudder to think where that will leave the average Aussie?