Bye-bye Beasley

Why didn't Julia Gillard run for leader of the Labor party, rather than deputy? Surely Australia, one of the first nations in the world to give women the vote, is ready for a female opposition leader? (Note that I don't count any Democrat senators as "opposition" leaders.) More people know who Julia is than who whatsisname is -- you know, the guy who ousted Kim Beasley -- um, Kevin Rudd. I doubt he would have won the leadership without her name on the ticket, so why not give her the job?
Kim Beasley's biggest mistake, the one that perhaps cost him his position as party leader, was of course mixing up his Roves. I mean, what Australian politician would think, on being asked if he had a message for Rove, that he was being asked to console a grieving comedian and not to address the adviser to the President of the United States? Wrong assumption, Kim... you should know that Aussies don't give a fig about international politics when one of our celebrities has recently died in tragic circumstances.
If her husband's well-being was so important that it was essential for our opposition leader to have an opinion on it, I wonder why Belinda wasn't offered a state funeral? Even Brockie had one. Crowds of mourners lined the roads of Mount Panorama to farewell the great Aussie statesman* who did so much for our country. I wonder if these were the same crowds of mourners who, two weeks later, lined the streets to mourn for the four teenagers who were killed in a single-car accident in Byron Bay. In a Commodore, the very brand of car Brockie put his signature on. Yes, he did a lot for our country.

* I suddenly see what they were thinking: somebody got their models mixed up and thought he was advertising a Holden Statesman, not a Commodore. I guess if they'd got the model right, he'd have been buried at sea with full naval honours...