That girl...

Crabb. She's done it again. Caz has Annabel Crabb's piece on the soaring "oratory" of our Kevvie in response to Obama's election. As good as that was the girls has outdone it today. In a piece today, about the predilection of Kevvie and Howard to "diss" their speechwriters in favour of their own "off-the-cuff" rhetorical prowess, she neatly nails the current and former PM with their mediocre meanderings. A snippet:

Another similarity between Howard and Rudd is their shared reluctance to submit to the black arts of the speechwriter.

Both of them believe themselves - incorrectly - to be better at speaking off-the-cuff than using a prepared speech...

The PM's suspicion of speechwriters is understandable. Just like John Howard, Rudd built himself up through sheer persistence and willpower, making speeches ceaselessly and doggedly and - probably, at the very beginning - reluctantly, training himself over years to feel comfortable in front of a crowd.

For such people, it is very difficult to understand that it is when they reach the summit of ambition that they most need help. The delegation of speechwriting seems like an abandonment of control.

And we all know how Kevin Rudd feels about not being in control.

Being a speechwriter for Kevin Rudd would be tough; imagine being Christian Lacroix putting the final stitches in a magical frock in the knowledge that your customer is probably going to team it with Ugh boots and wear it to Bunnings.

Or being Amy Winehouse's wardrobe consultant, or Shane Warne's minder; the worst bit would be knowing that there are millions of people out there who simply assume you don't exist at all.

Delicious. Perfectly skewered.

And, just before heading off to see the Wallabies push the English scrum around (yes, that likely means I'm going to bed), back to the piece highlighted by Caz:

I wrote a column in Tuesday's paper observing that Rudd's speech to Parliament acknowledging the election of the US's first black president-elect sounded "as though he was reading aloud from the agenda for the National Association of Metallurgists' annual general meeting".

By sundown, I'd heard from the chief executive of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. He wasn't angry - he just wanted it known that their AGMs are much more interesting than a Rudd speech.

That, in no way, surprises me.