Rudd’s secret spiked essay for Foreign Affairs journal

ginjella says:

07:37am | 02/06/09

He probably plagarised it from other writings.???

Rob Garsden says:

08:02am | 02/06/09

This does not sound like an embarrassing story.

It sounds like there was a timing issue.

Philip Crowley says:

08:08am | 02/06/09

“...an embarrassment for the Prime Minister who, as a former high level Australian diplomat.” Oh come on, really? What ‘high level’ did our illustrious leader reach, as a diplomat?

Of course it is a good idea for any politician to ‘have ideas’, and those ideas should be subjected to vigorous debate. Politics in most countries is way too partisan, and could be improved immensely by demanding our representatives vote on merit, rather than blindly toeing their respective party line.

James says:

08:09am | 02/06/09

Has anyone else noticed the acronym from Recession Underlying Deficit and Depression is RUDD?

Matthew Clayfield says:

08:24am | 02/06/09

Despite the overblown rhetoric of this post, the magazine’s decision not to publish Rudd’s article is hardly an embarrassment for him, much less a reflection of the quality of his ideas or indicative of some deep-seated inability to get the essay published. Suggesting that it might be, when the magazine’s editor himself has explicitly stated that timing was the problem, seems pretty rich.

Steve Atkins says:

08:39am | 02/06/09

It says good things about the independence of the Editor that he would have the balls to knock back a piece from someone who may not be quite the heavy hitter he would like to be, but is nonetheless a player of some note in the region.  I doubt that those in charge of most mainstream media outlets in Aus. would knock back an offering from Rudd. The ramifications could be too great - (payback time !)
The comment that resonates for me is that some at the Mag.  considered the piece “overly bureaucratic “.  One of the rules of thumb of writing a credible piece is sticking to what you know well and most about or where you have quals in that field . In Rudd’s case I doubt he knows more about anything than bureacracy so the call is likely to be somewhere near the mark.

James Kelly says:

08:51am | 02/06/09

This is further evidence of Rudd’s very limited career as a dipolomat, which has been grossly overstated. Indeed, this article refers to Rudd as a former “high level diplomat”, when in fact his highest position was well down the ranks. He would never have been involved in face to face negotiations with representatives of foreign governments, and would have spent his days on administration.
My guess is that his draft article was at the same juvenile standard as his economic analysis for The Monthly, reflecting his lack of experience in foreign affairs.

Peter says:

09:05am | 02/06/09

I’m not quite sure why this is a story. The Monthly is not Foreign Affairs; different echelon. What was strange was that everyone seems to have missed the piece he wrote in the Economist’s year=in-review magazine.

Braidy says:

09:17am | 02/06/09

This just shows that people understand that Rudd should not try and be a global leader when his credentials dont stack up. He has to realise our GDP is about 1 tenth the size of Japan!, we are in no way a global power in this region, or a global power at all. Rudd must work on fixing Australia and making Australia a global leader in the future.

Anthony says:

09:25am | 02/06/09

A good decision for the readers of that magazine.  Imagine subjecting them to Rudd’s turgid prose.  If he has good ideas then why bury them in impenetrable jargon?

QWERTY says:

09:46am | 02/06/09

Goes to show that very few share Rudd’s high opinion of himself ...

I wonder whether the editor was reduced to tears when he had to break the news that Rudd’s drivel wasn’t good enough ...

John says:

10:06am | 02/06/09

What on earth are these commentators thinking who say this isn’t a humiliation for Rudd? 

Of course it is a humiliation. 

The Australian Prime Minister has demeaned himself by asking magazines to publish his undergraduate rants, and one of the two magazines had the guts to call him on it.

Joe says:

10:23am | 02/06/09

It seems like Mr Rudd is over Australia. He has their approval in the bag. Now he needs his ego stroked on the international scene. This must have really hurt his proud ego and self worth.

He should be working out how to pay off his out of control debt, not how to get published in fancy magazines that most people don’t read anyway. What is he an aspiring author or a manager of our economy?

joe2 says:

10:59am | 02/06/09

What a beat up. Rudd submits an article to a magazine, the piece refused, and it considered a major “embarrassment”. All it says is that someone , even a P.M. ,is subject to the boss editor when it comes to being published. It is par for the course. If everyone who was rejected lay about crying nothing would reach the page. Though clearly ,sometimes, that would be a good thing.

Richard says:

11:17am | 02/06/09

This is a non-story that is being used as yet another excuse to run yet another personal attack on the PM.  I note in the comments that numbers of the usual -suspect Rudd-haters have jumped on the band-wagon and trotted out their usual bile-filled and puerile put-downs. Political commentary in this country has long-sinced deteriorated into a destructive combination of cynical sneering and character-assassination, none of which has anything to do with the real issues facing this country which our senior Government figures have to tackle on a daily basis.  This is lazy, base-level journalism which feeds nasty knee-jerk bologging by the ignorant and thoughtless.

Dean says:

11:22am | 02/06/09

It’d be interesting to see what the ‘overlap’ was actually, sounds like maybe a bit of plaguerism?

Evan says:

11:27am | 02/06/09

“So what do you think? Is it embarrassing for Rudd that he can’t get the essay published?”

I think those that are focused on the ‘embarassment’ angle have already made their mind up about Kevin Rudd (and the Labor party) anyway. Why not just read what he has published and see whether we think it is bringing anything into the debate. Personally I find reassuring that he has moral courage and guts to put things in print that can’t be wiggled out of later; which is a great tendency of politicians in other fora.

“Is it not a good thing that our PM has ideas? “

More than a good thing, because if he writes an essay the journalists don’t get a chance to select the parts of what he is saying in these ideas that are merely sensational or fit with some confected outrage. More politicians should express their ideas in this format.

Matthew Clayfield says:

11:34am | 02/06/09

“The Australian Prime Minister has demeaned himself by asking magazines to publish his undergraduate rants, and one of the two magazines had the guts to call him on it. “

Uh, John, the magazine didn’t call him on anything of the sort. Hoge said the essay wasn’t published because the timing didn’t work out and because similar pieces had recently been published. Nothing about undergraduate rants in there.

Indeed, the only suggestion in the article above that the essay wasn’t up to scratch is this paragraph:

“According to sources familiar with the essay it was considered by some at the magazine to be ‘overly bureaucratic’.”

The problem with this is that we have absolutely no idea who the source being quoted is. All we know is that it was someone who was familiar with both the essay and the reaction that some (again unnamed) people had to it at the magazine. These people could be at the highest level of management or running copy. It’s a very vague and hazy quote.

To extrapolate from two unattributed words some suggestion that the magazine feels Rudd is an intellectual poseur is absurd. He may well be, of course, and his ideas may indeed lack merit (I’m not arguing it either way). But that’s not what anyone quoted in the article is actually saying in it. (It may be what the article is implicitly trying to saying itself, but that’s another matter.) It’s always easy to read what one wants to than to read closely.

As for Joe’s comments…

“What is he an aspiring author or a manager of our economy?”

Yeah, politicians should never try to be writers. Thomas Jefferson, Václav Havel, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, et al., all nuts. How dare they attempt to formulate their political and ideological positions on the page? And then to make them available to others, so that those ideas might be shared! Oh, the arrogance of it all.

Dave says:

01:00pm | 02/06/09

The editor is being polite and going out of his way not to offend or embarrass the head of a national government. But the wording gives it away. “Because Foreign Affairs comes out only six times a year, it regrettably cannot publish all the excellent articles that are available to it. Prime Minister Rudd is a thoughtful statesman, and we would hope for better circumstances concerning an essay at a future date.” Note “an essay,” not “this essay,” “a thoughtful statesman,” rather than any more specific statement about his gifts as a writer or analyst, and most tellingly the standard boilerplate about “we receive many excellent submissions and regrettably we can’t publish them all.” Anyone familiar with Foreign Affairs knows that it is a serious journal that doesn’t publish pieces to coincide with politicians’ publicity trips; they are just allowing Rudd to save face by using his own scheduling demands as an excuse.

Matthew Clayfield says:

02:08pm | 02/06/09

Nice points, Dave, and well-put. You’re right to note Hoge’s use of “an essay” as opposed to “this essay”. But that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the quality of “this essay”. Not having read the thing, I’m only speculating, but might just as well have something to do with the fact that “this essay” was written to coincide with “that trip”, and therefore contains much that is now out of date or superfluous to the central thrust of Rudd’s argument. On the matter of quality, Hoge also wrote: “But there was no problem with the Prime Minister’s topic or analysis.” Obviously, one could choose to read these terms their broadest sense as well (“His topic was foreign affairs and that’s what we’re about, so he was on the money there”), but I still think the suggestion that he was “called out” by the magazine is ludicrous.

Not that I mean to be defending him so much. It’s just the unthinking virulence of some of the earlier comments got on my goat.

Academic says:

04:22pm | 02/06/09

As someone who actually works in academia and is stuck in the “publish or perish” world, can I point out that it’s not as simple as “just submitting it elsewhere”.  Publishing in academia is a long drawn out process and for Rudd to find an alternative publication with a fast turnaround time, let just say “good luck with that”.

eric shrimpton says:

08:40pm | 02/06/09

‘overly bureaucratic’  in more simple terms that translates to ‘load of c$%p’  to the simple layman

Gordon Eggins says:

11:06pm | 02/06/09

“Rob Garsden says:
This does not sound like an embarrassing story.

It sounds like there was a timing issue”

No, not a timing issue - it was publisher spin for “it is a dogs breakfast” but we have to put it very diplomatically for poor Kevvie

JDG says:

10:40am | 22/07/09

well.. it’s like I said!

b. smith, Adelaide says:

05:22pm | 30/07/09

This is all getting a bit stale.  Who cares?  About 60 odd % of Australians still
intend giving him a second term whatever he says or does.

sarah brunswick says:

01:16am | 13/05/10

I bet he dropped the bottom lip about not being published.. he sneers when he is questioned, this man is an egomaniac.