In his attack on Kevin Rudd's private R & R, which is, BTW, laughably ordinary to say the least, the spotlight goes back to the messenger: Alexander Downer.

A number of Liberals will end up with egg on their face over this outburst.

Think of it, the squealer on Rudd: of all people, Alexander Downer! The man that in surveys, 51% of people think he is gay and only 31% think that he only looks gay because he wears fishnet stockings and a red handbag.

http://www.opinion.com.au/3737_Is_Alexander_Downer_'gay'_%3F.htm

He apparently wore fishnet stockings to a school function in front of children in 1986. He later that year he did the same in a drunken conference party, dancing in his fishnets on again with Colin Powell who was wearing red high heals and make up.

The Australian newspaper's resident cartoonist, Bill Leak loved to draw Downer in comics.

BILL LEAK: I drew him as this comical little Billy Bunter-type figure from a posh English school. And, naturally, that meant that he had short pants. And so when he came along with the fishnet stockings, he did the fishnet stockings mistake, I thought, "Gee, I’m glad I already had him in short pants 'cause I can put the stockings on." And with Alexander Downer, I always think it's as though he's saying, "Oh, look, mummy, I'm the Foreign Minister." (Laughs).

KERRY O'BRIEN: (Laughs)

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1433914.htm

The Liberals are backing down from this direction for very good reasons, and some know why.

FLETCH...ur missing the true picture here..... let me outline it step by step..

1/ Labor/lefist Journalists decide to play GUTTER POLITICS and abandon all ethical standards of fair play, and dive down among the creatures of the deep..the bottom feeding crawling things.. and suddenly come up with "Costello will destroy Howard" 2 yrs after the OFF the record convo...

2/ SHOCK HORROR.. Downers Dirt machine swings into action and Rudd is 'fingered' as a drunken sleasebag.

3/ The Journalists without doubt will bleat "Who...us? gutter politics? nooooway.. we were just exercising our sense of political responsibility and morality... *Innocent look*....

HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

In simple terms.. we reap...what we sow.

Now we have 2 simple choices, (because of their gutter politics)

1/ Howard.. mr clean.
2/ Rudd.. mr sleaze.

But to be honest.. it doesn't particularly amaze me that Rudd did that.. I've been in the situation where being sent to Manila on business from the company I worked with then, and our official contacts said first up "Do you want some beers?" and we were not really feeling like it after the long flight.. so they said "Do you want some girls"? and we were also both married and declined.. but they insisted we come out with them to discuss the trade display etc which we were to assist them with... and they took us to a sleazy bar with gyrating half naked chicks and girls squirming around on top of blokes... the whole nine yards...

I don't drink personally, so there was no change of a 'Rudd' thing,
aaah.. life is certainly interesting....

But puh-lease..don't even try to give the 'Downer is bad/Rudd is good' angle on all this.. its just a mess which will spiral out of control if we feed it, and in the end..we will all be diminished.

Boazy, I think the point is that 95% of the population dont really care if Rudd did that. Particularly as he's been upfront about it.
I actually believe the comment that he acted like a frightened mouse and scarpered as soon as he realised where he was. I think Rudd has been quietly ambitious for sometime, and isnt the sort to deliberately hurt his chances at election.

Where it WILL hurt him, is if he now tries to come the moral police on anyone in the Liberal Party. So he'll probably have to do a lot of lip-biting as the election gets closer and more dirt on more pollies comes out. He will miss out on a lot of opportunities to put the boot into various liberal candidates.

Hmm... I half agree with you Country Gal. I think you're right in that Rudd's ambitious and probably scarpered, but I think he'd have been too clever to put the boot into liberals over moral issues.

See, one of Rudd's image problems has been that he is too clean cut - too over-the-top christian conservative. Yes, this has been an image problem, not a benefit.
Take a look at our prime ministers - plenty weren't clean cut. Look at Hawke and Fraser. Hell, Hawke held a record for sculling beer.

Rudd wouldn't have put the boot in to the liberals over moral issues - perhaps other labor MPs might have, but I suspect they would have played the 'lets not get too worked up' card, in a similar manner to a number of coalition MPs over this incident.

Alexander Downer is gay but more importantly he is stupid.
I give up complaining about the way this country is being run because the same old embarrassments keep getting back in even though I don't know anyone who votes for them.

Alexander Downers' sexuality has no bearing on his ability to do his job.

There now that I have said, I still think he's probably one of the worst Foreign Ministers this country has had.