Keating in retirement

The interview with Paul Keating with Elenor Hall last Monday is well worth a read, if only as a tragic reminder of the dearth of classy insults in politics today, where a chubby private school dust monitor like Costello seems to pass as ‘witty’:

“Oh, look, it's just Howard being Howard, isn't it, you know. The little desiccated coconut's under pressure and he's attacking anything he can get his hands on. I mean, look, Brian Burke and Julian Grill, they're the Arthur Daley and Terry of the Western Australian Labor Party, you know. They're like the wallpaper over there. You can't visit Perth without running into them, you know.

Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he's all tip and no iceberg, you know. He (laughs), you know, he can throw a punch across the parliament, but the bloke he should be throwing the punch to is Howard. Of course, he doesn't have the ticker for it. Now, he's now been treasurer for 11 years, the old coconut's still sitting there, araldited to the seat, and, you know, the Treasurer works on the smart quips, but when it comes to staring down the Prime Minister in his office, he always leaves disappointed, you know, he never gets the sword out. You know, you know the thing 'I'll huff and puff and blow your house in', that's Costello (laughs).

Look, for John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he's dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it's like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they're about a mile underground. He'd have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.”