This'll be interesting

If Coorey is telling us the truth (and why wouldn't he?) it seems that Tony "Putin" Abbott will remain the one to come out worst of this episode.

As The Age reports:

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, implying that Mr Abbott was making a serious charge against Ms Gillard based on a misunderstanding.

So, Coorey finds out that Abbott had been invited. If this led to other journalists asking the PM's office to confirm, so what if they answered honestly?

Next, Abbott is asked about the invitation, giving what he now calls a "lame" excuse, and this is met with universal condemnation. He assumes (right from the start, it seems) that it was Gillard's office who initiated the leak and was trying to score political points out of it.

Well, of course, this then gave her the opportunity to make her mild crack at Abbott's excuse; but really, this was handed to her on a platter, and who can blame her for not coming to his rescue?

Then Hockey attempted to cover for his boss' lame brain by giving out hints that Putin (sorry, Abbott) was about to make his own trip. (Apparently, Abbott cannot think fast enough to say something like " I will explain in detail when I return to Australia why I declined the PM's offer, and I am sure the Australian public will understand.")

I can understand now why Abbott did not say "It is not advisable for security reasons that the PM and Opposition Leader travel together": that would look lame given that we now know how indifferent he is to safety in that he wanted to be "embedded" with Australian forces. This request speaks more of Abbott's self-aggrandizement and poor judgment.* We just had nearly two hours of a journalist on the front line on Four Corners: I hope Defence Chief's just told him to just go and watch that rather than bother them with the worry of not getting himself killed.

Gillard also denied clearly that Abbott's trip had a set date at the time she offered the trip. Given that politicians don't usually make outright lies when they know there are many people out there who know the truth and call them out on it, I expect there will be almost certainly be enough "wriggle room" in Gillard's statement so that it cannot be an outright bit of dishonesty.

So I expect more interesting exchanges in the media about this during the week. As I say, it'll be interesting.

* Indeed, Abbott's statement that he received plenty of admiration for his electoral performance from his British visit again sounded vain. And remember his "why can't Australia have an Iron Man PM" style comment after his completed that race before the election?