hopeless353

Two blokes who knew something about political authenticity.

What political genius thought that releasing a video of a former prime minister swearing like a wharfie would actually damage his credibility, instead of pushing him further into the bosom of a disillusioned public convinced most politicians are another f---ing species?

I'm sure the pundits and commentators will have been out in force by the time you read this post, telling us the serious whys and wherefores of the very amusing Kevin Rudd swearing video - but everyone I've spoken to about it, including diehard Liberal voters have said, "That's the Kevin Rudd I want to see more of."

I guess we'll have to wait to find out if Prime Minister Julia Gillard's staff or supporters had anything to do with the release of the footage or whether it was a Machiavellian double-double-cross by the Ruddsters.

However, if the leak was orchestrated by someone sympathetic to Gillard, I reckon the impulse emanates from the tiny diamond-hard granule of political idiocy that the Australian voting public wants leaders to be word-perfect, all-knowing, mistake-free, polite and politically correct.

This is bullshit and I'm staggered so many political staffers don't see the value in showing their bosses as humans. Australians love seeing some fire and emotion - some authenticity from their political leaders - as Premier Anna Bligh proved during last year's Queensland floods.

We don't wanna see Mark Latham-crazy levels of emotion - but we don't mind a leader speaking their mind, sticking to their guns and talking about "those dickheads in the embassy" every now and then.

For Gillard, showing any emotion is a double-edged sword, because no matter how little or restrained it is, there will be zealots on the other side of politics who characterise it is as "stage-managed" or "yet another woman unable to control herself under stress".

However, you can't let yourself be controlled by zealots - even if they have their own radio shows and newspaper columns. If you do, you get politicians too scared to fart, and that's what Julia Gillard is.

She strikes me as being so worried about saying the wrong thing, she says absolutely nothing. My 22-month-old daughter is a more interesting public speaker.

Here's what I don't think the staffers, pollies and many of the reporters living in the Canberra bubble get: WE DON'T CARE if politicians stuff up every now and then, as long as they're not playing us for fools or speaking to us like children.

Almost every Aussie has had some kind of personal exposure to sanitised double talk - whether on the job, dealing with a client, a bank, insurance company, government department or watching it on TV - and we know it's bullshit.

We know when people speak like that they're trying to cover their arses, they are trying not to be held accountable, they're insincere, they're almost talking down to us, but in what is considered a socially acceptable manner.

One of Julia Gillard's biggest problems is she addresses the Australian public as if she's in an HR meeting about to sack one group of voters for coming back late from the pub at lunch, but measuring her words so she doesn't incur a lawsuit.

This was the mistake Rudd made too as his term as PM progressed; he became unemotional and robotic, he worried too much about saying the wrong thing - which was the antithesis of the nerdy dude with a dorky quip who much of the Aussie public fell in love with during his regular appearances on Sunrise.

In this month's Atlantic magazine, former political junkie Steve Tuttle writes about dropping out of the news.

"I spent 25 years at Newsweek magazine as an editor and writer. It used to be my job to obsess about the latest political tick tock, to give rapt attention to FOX and MSNBC, and to bore down into the 18th paragraph of the latest Washington Post story unravelling the true meaning of the Iowa caucuses.

"I've attended every political convention since 1996 and seen every acceptance speech live. I got down so deep into the minutiae of the Clinton-Lewinsky saga that clouds started to look like blue dresses and macadamia nuts," writes Tuttle.

In April last year, he took a buyout from Newsweek "so I could write a book and sleep a lot".

"Since I left, I haven't seen a single minute of the 258 Republican debates ... I don't know the positions of any candidates beyond the surface, and I don't care. I really don't. It's so liberating.

"And it turns out I'm not alone. There are plenty of other people I've met on the outside who live without cable or BlackBerrys or smart phones, and they don't miss those things. That's because they are hiking, and chopping wood, and going to church or visiting neighbours.

"I know there is nothing more tedious than listening to a reformed addict, but it's a revelation not to be hunched over a device all day, thumbs blazing, ignoring the world around me while vacantly awaiting the next tiny development in the incessant parade of mostly pointless political news," writes Tuttle.

People like you and me have known this all along.

Politicians - Julia Gillard in particular - would do well to note this observation. Their minders would be served incredibly too. They live in an echo chamber of career politicians, staffers, journos and lobbyists who live and die "awaiting the next tiny development in the incessant parade of mostly pointless political news". But the rest of us?

We don't give a shit. We don't care about the majority of stuff that fills the heads of these people, save how much money we have in our pocket and if our family is happy and healthy.

And a lot of the time, when those things don't go to plan, we swear like Kevin Rudd does in that video.

Which is why its release will just make us like the bloke more.

Sam de Brito's latest novel Hello Darkness is in bookstores now. You can follow him on Twitter here. His email address is here.