A Different Mood, a Different Voice

In “Girls and women, heed the Gillard examples” at Quadrant Online, Dr Philippa Martyr explains rather well how our dear but tense PM coped with irksome questions:

When you read the transcript of the interview, it’s clear that Gillard dealt with Howard Sattler’s question very well.  She defused it, answered it, and moved on.  That actually shows competence, not offence.

This rather explains, I reckon, why so many people suspect that Ms Gillard was expecting the tenor of those questions, though she was unimpressed with the artless expression thereof, and that some sort of deal had been devised.  There was far less tightness of the throat and strident argumentativeness which she revealed when pressed by Ben Fordham to state whether she’d been in the same room as Ralph Blewitt (when she allegedly witnessed his odd Power of Attorney), and there was none of the hysterical shrillness accompanied by a grumpy demeanour which she manifests whenever peeved by questions from wicked bêtes noires in Question Time.


Since we know that the PM’s career has been marked at all stages by assistance from various puppeteers, it is not irrational, whenever we suspect some degree of competence from the PM, to suspect also that there’s been some manipulation from below to make her seem competent.

[This was posted originally as a comment at Catallaxy Files.]

UPDATE I:  some earlier commentary on Twitter about the PM:

UPDATE II:  some much earlier commentary from the PM, when she was in opposition, in 2006:

UPDATE III (17 June):  meanwhile, police from the Victorian Fraud Squad continue to investigate the PM’s dodgy conduct as a lawyer; see update xiv of “The Prime Minister Is a Liar”.