Last night I watched the re-screening of the now infamous Enough Rope interview of Mark Latham. I was a person who voted for Latham, who thought he was a good prospective PM and who was a clearly better alternative PM when put up against John Howard. He was in my view raw, a bit rough around the edges, but was there to give people a fair go.
Since then, we have had his resignation and the falling out from that. Now he has released his book and has given a right serve to all and sundry, mostly to people from his own Labor party. He has also clearly given a huge serve and told a few home truths on certain media identities and they have obviously been made to look like fools.
I think this is important to mention because the media have talked up his behaviour on this interview in a big way. They said he was delusional and a bit of a gibberer. However, in contrast I found him to be clear, articulate, convinced of his side of things and he was far from a gibberer.
I will say though that I think he has suffered some form of significant mental breakdown and even though he denies it, his decision to pull the pin was one for his mental well being. I do believe that he lacked conviction on the Beazley Dirt File and that he wasn’t strong on that point, but I got the opposite vibe when he was discussing the media.
It now means that the media have an issue to ensure that they report the facts of the interview rather than hysterically defend themselves at the expense of the truth.
Read the transcript of the interview here.
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