Peta considered

There are two detailed commentary pieces by female journalists out today about Peta Credlin.

The first, by Michelle Grattan, seems to me to be by far the best.   It's a straight forward dismissal of  Credlin's self serving claim that her power wielding in the PM's office was only a problem for others because she was a woman.   No, says Michelle, the way in which she alienated MPs would have caused exactly the same resentment regardless of her gender, and she has to take a substantial part of the blame for her boss losing his job.

Over at The Guardian, Katherine Murphy takes a more feminist analysis, waffling on somewhat about power as wielded by women.  Some of the paragraphs are a bit over the top:

The tall willowy woman was always conspicuous, wagging a disapproving finger, growling like a combatant in the advisers’ box, standing a full head higher than the men.

That disconcerting height, always looming, regally. Shoulders back. Vaguely horsey, absurdly healthy, meticulous, glamorous, glowing – millinery and heels. No stooping. Certainly no shirking.

As someone says in the comment thread:

Thank you, Mills And Boon.

And many others in the thread note that this strangely sympathetic (for a Guardian writer) take on a right wing warrior overlooks the fact that she was working for Abbott when he was making some distinctly sexist comments about Gillard.  (Of course, it might be that she didn't like all of her boss's quips, but the way she would get involved in making derogatory comments at Labor while sitting in an advisers box in Parliament makes me think otherwise.)

I think the fair assessment is just that she was, like her boss, an opportunistic political warrior who still doesn't understand her own inadequacies.