Pssst! Did you hear the news?

Well, we can knock out Gillard, Roxon, Wong and Macklin because they are a wrong gender fit for that rather strange rumour which mentions cabinet minister and inappropriate behaviour in the same sentence and very little else.
That leaves Swan, Rudd, Evans, Crean, Smith, Albanese, Conroy, Carr, Garrett, McClelland, Ludwig, Burke, Ferguson, Bowen, Emerson and Combet.
Now that’s so wide a field for speculation that it’s a wonder any journalist bothered to spend time at the keyboard, even if you throw in a hint of leadership ambitions.
But then at least one anonymous journo is aware of the flimsy nature of his piece because he justifies it by saying that the news is not what the minister did or didn’t do but that the supposed internal party response (to what can only be called phantom actions) represents instability within the Gillard Government and his newspaper’s rendition of the gossip is in the public interest.
I kid you not. These days an article containing no name, no action, no time or place is relevant news in the public interest.
G’arn!