Kevin: The report card

In New York recently, Bill Clinton said of the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd:

"In my opinion, he is one of the most well-informed, well-read, intelligent leaders in the world today."

Unfortunately for Bill, with this statement - and also by calling him Kevin Rude - Clinton showed that he doesn't know him very well at all.

To set the record straight, here is The ShadowLands' report card on Kevin Rudd:

English:

In March, in the hallowed surroundings of St Paul's Cathedral, London and with British PM, Gordon Brown by his side, Kevin Rudd delivered a defining speech. It is clear from the text that he spurned the use of a speech writer.

Unfortunately for Kevin, his defining speech defined him as someone way out of his depth, and as a spouter of near illiterate gibberish and platitudes, like this:

"I think we are at an unprecedented turning point enable to harness this great potential. So how is this done in the schools and how is it taken better?"...

and this...

"There will be a discovery afresh on the part of those affected by that, that those who are their neighbours or their friends of this extra call-back to family and to community, and in that, the discovery afresh of old truths."

Kevin desperately wants to be remembered to history. Hilariously, the St Paul's speech reveals that his desire to be remembered is not matched by his ability to say anything profound, memorable or even vaguely interesting.

Kevin also seems to rely on a handful of infuriatingly meaningless catchphrases, such as "The choice is either to do nothing or to do something..." not to mention the cliches. When he tries to avoid the cliches, it only gets worse:

"This is where the current global order is in danger of falling between two stools... "

Grade: FAIL

Mathematics

The direct link to the transcript has mysteriously disappeared, but in November 2008, Kevin Rudd had this to say about China - the country for which he is lauded for his expertise:

"Now if you have 1.3 trillion people - 400 million of them still lie south of the poverty line, I stand to be corrected on the exact number, but something like that - then it is a huge challenge."

Kevin has also claimed that a reason for a huge influx of queue jumpers on boats has not been his relaxation of laws, it has been a 12 per cent increase in asylum seekers internationally. However, the increase of boat arrivals since Rudd changed the law is hundreds of per cent.

Grade: FAIL

Geography

Kevin has repeated the falsehood on many occasions that Australia is the world's hottest and driest continent. He also combined his ignorance of both geography and English in front of the Pope.

Grade: FAIL

Economics

As the global financial crisis hit, Kevin predicted that China would drag Australia into recession - this despite the fact that China was experiencing growth of 8 per cent. As it turned out, China was one of the major factors that kept Australia out of recession.

Rudd has blamed the economic crisis on a failure of capitalism and markets, when it was actually a failure of regulation.

Clearly confused, he has then turned to the markets as the mechanism for his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Grade: FAIL

History

Rudd once referred, on his own website, to that great Labor hero, John Curtain. However his greatest problem with history is a tendency to re-write it to suit his own ends, and especially a tendency for him to view his every action as a step of unprecedented historical importance.

Grade: FAIL

Personal Development

One of the reasons that Kevin has to visit former Presidents rather than current ones is that he has developed a well earned reputation for being unable to maintain confidences or demonstrate any discretion whatsoever.

During his St Paul's speech, Kevin suggested that he and Gordon Brown had made a commitment to visit Bhutan - a commitment that Brown clearly couldn't back out of quickly enough.

If you need a true indication of Kevin's effectiveness in international relations, just ask Stern Hu.

Grade: FAIL, FAIL, FAIL

Comments

Kevin Rudd is a total dweeb who will not miss an opportunity to become a lying dweeb if he thinks it will make him more popular. Kevin is only thought of as intelligent by people who have seen Revenge of the Nerds, and have taken away the key message that if you look like a dork, you must be intelligent. In fact, Kevin displays all of the characteristics of a dork except for intelligence.