Keating blasted over McGuinness attack

http://news.smh.com.au/keating-blasted-over-mcguinness-attack/20080131-1pad.html

Former prime minister Paul Keating was "cowardly and dishonourable" to attack journalist Paddy McGuinness after his death, says historian and Quadrant editor Keith Windschuttle.

Mr McGuinness, a former editor of the Sydney-based monthly journal, is described as "a liar and a fraud" with the "morals of an alley cat" in an opinion piece by Mr Keating published in The Australian Financial Review (AFR).

Mr McGuiness died on Saturday after a long battle with cancer. His funeral is in Sydney on Friday.

Mr Keating wrote that an obituary published in the AFR, which Mr McGuiness also edited, had described the former Quadrant editor as a contrarian or agent provocateur.

"He was none of those things," Mr Keating said.

"He was a fraud. But let me calibrate that. He was not just a fraud, he was a liar and a fraud."

Mr Keating accused Mr McGuinness of having a "prejudiced, capricious and intellectually corrupt mind that was all over the shop depending on what suited his miserable purposes at the time".

Mr Windschuttle, an historian, author and ABC board member, offered a brief riposte to Mr Keating on behalf of his predecessor at the Quadrant.

"Keating should have made his accusations when Paddy was alive and able to answer him back," he told AAP.

"It is cowardly and dishonourable to make them now he is dead."

Mr Keating, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1996, defended his attack on Mr McGuinness by saying his "moral position" allowed him to do so.

"In a long public life I have made it a rule never to speak ill of the dead; to not criticise someone who can no longer respond to the criticism," he wrote.

"I am going to break that rule in the case of Paddy McGuinness.

"I do so for this reason: in the last two decades of his life, McGuinness heaped more vitriol and contumely on me than anyone in public life.

"Working on the notion that 'the dogs may bark but the caravan moves on', I rarely responded to his unreasonable and unceasing tirades.

"So, in that piggy bank of reasonableness, I have a massive store of credits that, in all fairness, I am in a moral position to draw on."

Mr Keating said Mr McGuinness, as editor of the AFR when Labor won government in 1983, had been "cut to the quick" when he (Mr Keating) had surpassed "his modest reform agenda" within the first two months of taking over treasury.

"He could never have imagined that, within a year of taking office, the guy in the navy blue suit from Sussex Street, one of the 'thugs' on the Right, would have completely deregulated the banking system, removing all deposit maturity and lending controls, totally abolishing exchange controls while moving the exchange rate from a price-based to a quantity-based system", Mr Keating wrote.

"And at the same time, reducing previous treasurer John Howard's profligate budget deficit by a substantial proportion of GDP.

"What, as editor of the AFR, could he say?

"He was obliged to applaud.

"And it rankled with him for the balance of his professional life."

Pretty consistent form for someone who once described Australia as "the arse end of the earth".

Even Hayden has condemned his attack on McGuinness. Stan Zemanek often attacked Keating, and several years ago Keating called up, calling himself "Paul", and launched into attack mode. Zemanek eventually worked out it was Keating, and quite an interesting "debate" followed. It could have been worse: We could have had Latham.

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Feb 4^th, 2008 at 2:30pm:


Both.  Johnny for the best modern PM Australia has enjoyed and Cheating for failing to lodge his tax returns, indulging in impressive cheating of the tax office with a piggery, calling the press "phuqing animals."  and saying Laurie Oakes is "a cane toad".

I know who I prefer, being normal as I am, but each to his own style.   To some Cheating represents the pinnacle of arseholery - to me he is an oaf.

mantra wrote on Feb 5^th, 2008 at 12:30pm:


While it may be a common phenomenon Cheating has always been 'grumpy'.   Even young Cheating was grumpy.  

To Richard Carlton

"You (Richard Carleton) had an important place in Australian society on the ABC and you gave it up to be a pop star...with a big cheque...and now you're on to this sort of stuff. That shows what a 24 carat pissant you are, Richard, that's for sure"

To Jim McClelland

"That you Jim? Paul Keating here. Just because you swallowed a phuqing dictionary when you were about 15 doesn't give you the right to pour a bucket of testicles over the rest of us."

He bellowed at a uni student

"Go and get a job!"

And he said about Mike Codd

"Codd will be lucky to get a job cleaning shithouses if I ever become Prime Minister."

Cheating was a nasty and bitter clod all his life.  He wasn't smart enough to be Prime Minister or even Treasurer but he hung out at the right ALP hovels and he rooted the right ALP backsides.  Then he rooted Australia good and proper.

Aussie wrote on Feb 5^th, 2008 at 9:34pm:






deepthought wrote on Feb 4^th, 2008 at 10:53pm:


Yes I picked you for the former Aussie.  Cheating was the kind of Australian who made the honest, hard working, sophisticated Australian embarrassed and the rednecks beam with pride at one of their own making it to the trough.

mantra wrote on Feb 6^th, 2008 at 10:05am:


I think I would rather be remembered for making a difference, not for being an offensive dimwit.  Cheating makes the headlines and people laugh at him.

John Howard's Australia was a remarkable place.  More people employed than at any time since the 60s, less industrial action than at any time since before the First World War, inflation held virtually static for a decade, wages growth every single year for the entire term of the government, tax cuts practically every budget since the beginning of the coalition government, a savings plan for the first time in history, a revolutionary tax act with consumer taxes for the first time in history, a leading edge industrial regime which saw huge jobs growth and a reversal of the casual army created by Cheating, health budgets growing by a figure nearly twice that of inflation, more money spent per child on education than most countries in the world, the introduction of the Medicare 'safety net', the introduction of targetted welfare to even out the inequities in the system, the complete repayment of mountainous Liebor debt they inherited, budgets in surplus every year for a decade, the doubling and redoubling of household wealth    . . . . .

It was an awesome period which will never be repeated in the near future.

Aussie wrote on Feb 6^th, 2008 at 4:54pm:


He was an excellent communicator.  To those with two eyes and who didn't have hearing issues of course.  Sadly there do appear to be a lot of one eyed people with the inability to discern fact from fiction.

Luckily the truth reveals itself in remarkable ways, if not always pleasant circumstances  - as those Mitsubishi workers and distressed mortgagors can attest.

Incidentally as Australia's second longest serving PM he has nothing to be ashamed of in losing his throne.

Aussie wrote on Feb 6^th, 2008 at 8:48pm:



I don't recall mentioning the word 'stupid'.  Very smart people can be duped old feller.  Little Kevvy waves his arms about with impressive vigor and spouts words that sound effective.  But I have seen his like before and am not easily fooled.  Additionally I know a great deal about business and am aware that very little he burbled was viable or even possible.  I am also dreadfully analytical and very little he pontificated was feasible or even achievable.

For example his broadband cable.  No other first world country's government in the world that I am aware of has funded a broadband network.  Why?  Well even if you don't know the answer the simple fact of them avoiding such an idea seems to indicate that it is problematic.  Yet the media fell for it, they trumpeted it like a lump of glorious twaddle and those without any technical knowledge gushed, cooed and stained their trousers.

But if you know anything at all about technology you will know that only a fool would even consider dreaming about it.  Something less than a fool is required to boast about it.  Something a fool wipes off his shoe would suggest doing it.  Guess where Little Kevvy was placed?