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October 8th, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
Former politician Graham Richardson. Piicture: Dean Martin
Source: AdelaideNow
KEVIN Rudd should not have wasted his air time on Graham Richardson, writes Samantha Maiden.
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GRAHAM Richardson was a “gifted liar”, and an “archetypal trickster” as Labor Party warlord, Bob Hawke’s biographer and wife Blanche d’Alpuget says.
However you choose to describe him, just like his old boss, Paul Keating, he knows when to throw the switch to vaudeville.
This week he sprung a masterful media trap for Kevin Rudd to help spruik his incarnation as a political commentator on Sky News.
“Whatever it takes,” was the Richo motto when he prepared to bring down Hawke after he shafted him in the ministry. Now he’s applying the same take-no-prisoners approach to his new media career.
He named and shamed two MPs, Victoria’s Alan Griffin and WA’s Mark Bishop, as Rudd backer, after promoting his new show with promises of a political striptease to defibrillate the Labor leadership story.
Rudd took the bait at a press conference at another of his curious visits to marginal seats, to the horror of his enemies and his backers. He made no attempt to deny “Griffo” as he called him was doing his numbers. And he attacked Richardson as an operative of the factional thugs that deposed him as leader.
But the faceless men and the Ruddites are on a unity ticket on this one. The Foreign Affairs Minister should not have given Richardson any oxygen by berating him in public as suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome.
“There’s a thing in politics called relevance deprivation syndrome. Is Mr Richardson suffering from that?” Mr Rudd asked reporters.
“Probably,” he answered. “Is Mr Richardson doing as he’s always done in the past and acting as some sort of unofficial spokesman for the factional bullies in our party who try to control it from time to time? Undoubtedly.”
It probably felt very, very good to once again raise a one-fingered salute to the NSW Right that helped destroy his leadership. But it horrified some of his backers. “Richo is the tar baby,” said one Rudd supporter. “He loves publicity and he’s trying to bait Kevin.
“He’s below Kevin’s pay grade. So Kevin should have ignored him.”
Rudd’s enemies agreed. “Richo hardly touched him up and the glass jaw returns,” observed a Labor minister. “He gave Richo what he wants – another two days of publicity.”
Rudd’s backers call Richo the mailman, suggesting his job is to deliver messages for the NSW Right. This overstates his role. These days Richo is freelance. He has cleared his wrangles with the Tax Office and made the judgment call his work as a lobbyist in NSW is likely to be on a backburner as a result of the election of a Liberal government. He is determined to reinvent himself as a TV star.
Richo put on a good show even before he grabbed the headlines with his big reveal on the Rudd troops. His recent interview with Peter Costello where the Treasurer dumped all over Howard’s final years as being about foreign affairs while his deputy ran the economy was a cracker.
But what better prop to get people talking than Kevin Rudd in attack mode?
Rudd could have taken a leaf out of Tony Abbott’s rope-a-dope strategy when confronted his public attacks by ghosts of Liberal past.
When Peter Costello accused Abbott of effectively allowing his industrial relations policy to be infected by his Jesuit education – too Democratic Labor Party, too soft, the Liberal leader chose not to return fire. Why would he?
Costello’s attacks play into Abbott’s attempts to position himself to blue collar workers as a trusted brand in the industrial relations arena. The lesson of last week is there’s a new dancing bear at the Labor circus tent. His name is Richo.
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