incompetence

[fpb]

Russian foreign policy is so bad that they have managed to alienate even naturally pro-Russian government such as the Lukashenko post-Communist tyranny in Belarus and the supposedly pro-Russian Yushkhovich government in Ukraine. The Chinese look at them with obvious distrust (their recent project of an Asiatic-European bullet train network deliberately avoids Russia, actually choosing the politically unstable and physically earthquake-prone territories of Iran and Turkey). The Putin-Medvedev government is increasingly proving a complete failure.

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

And, indeed. It seems that Mr. Rudd is very suddenly a dead letter.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And the swiftness of the challenge and the speed of his removal is stunning. It was being talked about, of course, but only in the media on a 'surely they've either got to flick him or go down blazing' basis. Nobody ever dreamed it would go like this. Normally these things evolve over a longer period than this.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

He may have been tired himself. If, as you say, he has been fighting a series of losing battles ever since Copenhagen, there may have been an element of "Oh, to Hell with the lot of you!"

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

Everything that's said about him suggests that he worked himself into the ground. Unfortunately, activity does not necessarily equal achievement, which is something else he appears to have missed. The fact is that his policies had a lovely veneer and made for good headlines... but that's about all they were. Once you looked deeper into things, there were all sorts of hideous problems, and one of those policies (government-sponsored installation of roofing insulation) wound up killing four men because of inattention to detail.

His worst failing was inability to delegate. Many of his ministers appeared to be nothing more than sock-puppets, and our new Prime Minister, Gillard, states that one of her biggest problems was that he simply wasn't listening to her - or to anyone else. That may exculpate her to a degree from the horrendous failure in her own education portfolio, or it may not. The outward appearance from my perspective is of a deputy who didn't stand up to her boss the way Abbott and Co. eventually stood up to Turnbull over the ETS business, and makes me wonder if all we've got is more of the same.

I hope not, because she seems intelligent and competent in her own right; and it'd be a shame for our first female PM to be no more than a puppet on the strings of a bunch of thuggish trade union-derived powerbrokers who cut her predecessor down for her.