Fadey, I am not making assertions here about what is and isn't acceptable: I am inviting you to. You can say it's acceptable or not- up to you. But what I'm trying to do (and am finally succeeding in doing) is getting you to explain the objective standards against which you are making your judgments.
Naturally we expect Johnny Howard to constantly re-define his 'objective' standards- they vary day-to-day and almost minute-to-minute. If Santo was, say, Downer or Ruddock, Howard would be 'standing by him' with no real explanation and none demanded by the pussy media. They follow your advice and don;t require 'rules', hence we live in this relativistic Howardland (and Iemmaland, Bracksland etc) where standards, far from being 'commonsense', are more 'the most abuse we can get away with and keep office. It might sound like paradise to you, but all the rules that restrict my freedom are objective and non-negotiable.
Frankly, I'd rather have politicans who consort with criminals but can maintain consistent standards. I'm not saying this is Rudd necessarily. But if more people asked more questions like this, we'd live in a better country.
My fascination with this Burke thing is how thoroughly the media have failed to ask the questions I'm asking you. And forget your 'above suspicion' crap: normally, like the robotic conservative cheer-squad, you apply two utterly different sets of standards. Unless you're going to damnad Howard go down for meeting porn-man? Or does it not count when he hasn't yet been convicted, or the politician didn't know... suddenly 'looking good' doesn't matter.
