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Kevin Rudd has quit the post of Australia’s ambassador the US. The question is: did he jump, or was he pushed?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Mr Rudd would resign on March 31 and that it was the ambassador’s call to leave.
Mr Albanese paid tribute to Mr Rudd’s work helping further the AUKUS pact, securing Julian Assange’s release in 2024 and building relationships across both sides of politics in the US.
This is mostly just Albanese’s trademark bullshit. It is true that Rudd did some work to keeping the AUKUS deal alive, but “building relationships”?
As the world saw, US President Donald Trump didn’t know Rudd from a bar of soap. With Rudd sitting, squirming, across the table, Trump asked, “Where is he? Is he still working for you?” Albanese had to point him out.
Others in the room did know who he is – and not in a good way. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for instance, who once called him a “third-world strongman”, and Vice President JD Vance, who previously dubbed Rudd “reprehensible” and an “idiot”.
Both of which are prime qualities in a Labor pollie. There are some pieces of bodily flotsam that bob forever in Labor’s toilet bowl, no matter how often voters try to flush them. It took three or four electoral drubbings for Labor to finally realise they couldn’t keep parachuting Kristina Keneally into safe Labor seats. Rudd was dumped twice, first by his own party, then by voters.
Sending him to Washington was at once a sweetheart deal for a Labor insider and a way of keeping an inveterate wrecker out of Albanese’s hair.
So, why is Rudd quitting early?
There is one school of thought that he was given the option to leave before being arsed out. Rudd’s position was untenable, all because of his own hubris.
The ambassador was forced to delete historical tweets that labelled Mr Trump a “traitor to the West” and the “most destructive president in history”.
The Donald might not have known who he was (which is the most withering put-down in the extensive lexicon of Trump insults: if he doesn’t know you, you’re not worth knowing), but he knew what he thought of Rudd once he was pointed out from the anonymous crowd of flunkies.
Mr Trump told Mr Rudd: “I don’t like you, and I probably never will” in response to a question from a journalist about the ambassador’s previous criticism of the US president.
If not knowing you is Trump’s biggest put-down, not being known is Rudd’s deepest fear. During the 2013 Australian election campaign, coalition strategists pegged Rudd as a grandiose narcissist. That is, Rudd’s towering ego means that he labours under the delusion that he’s the smartest guy in any room.
When Tony Abbott dismissively cut Rudd off, mid-pontification, saying, “Does this guy ever shut up?”, the effect was devastating. Rudd visibly had to control himself from exploding.
The other school of thought goes that Rudd quit because the current White House failed to recognise what he regards as his world-class intellect. More importantly (to him), leaving the ambassadorial post frees him up to go back to showering us all with his unparalleled wisdom.
He also thanked the trustees of the Asia Society, a foreign policy think tank, for offering him the roles of global president and chief executive, alongside the presidency of its Policy Institute, and chair of its Center for China Analysis.
“I will be remaining in America working between New York and Washington on the future of US-China relations, which I have always believed to be the core question for the future stability of our region and the world,” he added.
Rudd actually thinks he’s the one to save the world. What an egotistical creep he really is.
