abbott: gillard guilty of "bastardry"

Andrew Bolt - Monday, October 11, 10 (04:52 am)

Abbott is right - this was indeed an act of bastardry:

TONY Abbott has accused Julia Gillard of "low bastardry" in disclosing that he had declined her offer to travel to Afghanistan together to visit Australian troops.

At the end of a full-day visit to the forces at the coalition base in Tarin Kowt on Saturday, Mr Abbott said he personally told the Prime Minister weeks earlier that he planned to visit separately.

"So Gillard's office were briefing [reporters] last Monday that Iiked somehow dudded the troops by not visiting," Mr Abbott said at the weekend.

"I regard it as an act of low bastardry given what Gillard knew based on the conversation I'd had with her personally," he said.

"My thinking was, once it became apparent what was going on, when it comes to Machiavellian bastardry, she's up there with the best of them."

Abbott concedes that the excuse he gave for not going with Gillard was stupid:

Defending himself last week against the insinuation that he had been uninterested in visiting the troops, Mr Abbott produced the infamous defence that he was worried about jet lag.

But after his visit, Mr Abbott explained: "Of course I'm not supposed to say when I'm going, but I had to offer some sort of excuse. It was a lame one, but it was the best I could do at the time."
Politicians' visits to war zones are kept secret until after the event to protect their safety and the safety of the air crew and others travelling with them. "It was a bad choice of words, no doubt about that, I said it the following morning, but the truth is the last thing I ever would have thought was Gillard would try to make an issue of this, given that she knew, all along, that I was going to Afghanistan because I had discussed it personally with her."

A reporter defends Gillard:

However, the reporter who broke the story of Ms Gillard's offer to Mr Abbott said that the disclosure did not come from the Prime Minister or her office.

"I did not learn about it from the government," The Sydney Morning Herald's Phillip Coorey said yesterday

I find it hard to believe that Gillard's offer to Abbott wasn't leaked by someone acting on her behalf. Even if it wasn't, Gillard nevertheless seized the opportunity to mock Abbott for not going to Afghanistan when she actually knew he was on his way.

If you think Abbott is now overreacting, know that he was very slow to conclude that Gillard's foul attempt to turn his advice to his daughters into an attack on his alleged Catholic misogyny and paternalism was deliberate and malevolent:

TONY Abbott's advice to young women about not giving away their virginity lightly would confirm "the worst fears of Australian women about him," Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says

Ms Gillard said: "Australian women don't want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott. "Australian women want to make their own choices, and they don't want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott."

And now the question is whether Julia Gillard lied or deliberately misled when she said this on October 5, one week ago:

Ms Gillard said ...she was not aware herself that he had a solo visit to Afghanistan, already locked in. "Your suggestion that he had a fixed date to go (to Afghanistan) when I issued the invitation to him is not correct," she told reporters in Brussels.

But Abbott now reveals:

TONY Abbott says he told Julia Gillard at a meeting on September 22 that he had booked a visit to the Australian troops in Afghanistan.

The Australian command in Afghanistan confirmed it had known about Mr Abbott's visit for more than two weeks. The head of Australia's Middle Eastern operations, Major General John Cantwell, said he had delayed taking leave to show Mr Abbott around Tarin Kowt.

Mr Abbott said Ms Gillard might not have known an exact date, but she knew of his plans.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/