Yes, and it's a point The Australian keeps making over and over and over again, Andrew

The ABC1's Insiders host on Melbourne's MTR 1377 yesterday:

ANDREW Bolt: Why were the Americans on top of what Rudd was up to before most journalists were?

Cassidy: The point I'm making is that [in] November 2009 they were already making those kinds of observations. And they weren't generally being made across the media. Therefore they were getting their information through private conversations. In today's paper, one of those people has been named. Mark Arbib.

Bolt: I've had lunch with Mark Arbib. And I see nothing in the cables beyond what I've heard from him. Why were the Americans on top of what Rudd was up to before most of the people we pay top dollar to to tell us from Canberra itself?

Cassidy: They knew who to go to, I suppose.

Bolt: So should journalists.

Cassidy: Absolutely.

Bolt: But the thing that disturbs me is that the US embassy can be more on top of things than the very people paid as insiders to report on it to us. What does that tell you about the gallery?

Cassidy: And it's a point The Australian has been making over and over and over again.

Bolt: What does it say?

Cassidy: Well, they missed the story for a very long time.

Bolt: Here's another story about a Labor leader they missed, Mark Latham. They were backing Mark Latham, who we now know was mad. Most were on his side, too.

Cassidy: Yes. I think at the time of Latham the gallery needed a dose of excitement. They wanted a competitor in the game because John Howard had been so dominant for so long. And so they put faith in this guy. It wasn't immediately obvious to me, though, that Mark Latham was . . .

Bolt: You didn't read enough of my columns.

Cassidy: I do read your columns, I just don't take all of them on face value,

Bolt: The gallery got Latham wrong, they got Rudd wrong. Have they now got Julia Gillard wrong?

Cassidy: You're implying there's group think in the gallery, and there's not. Journalists at The Australian think about issues very differently from journalists at Fairfax, you'd have to accept that.

Bolt: When the leftist journalists get the big questions so often wrong, shouldn't you consider saying to the Left, you can only have one seat on Insiders every week?

Cassidy: They may get it wrong, but that doesn't mean they're all Left, just because they're not as conservative as you are.

Labor's Bill Shorten on his fellow frontbencher Mark Arbib yesterday:

I COMPLETELY reject the idea that he is a spy. I just think that's nonsense.

Megan Levy in The Age yesterday:

"MARK Victor Arbib (born 9 November 1971) is an Australian Traitor and spy for America," his Wikipedia page read just after 4am AEDT today. "He will join Benedict Arnold and Judas in the afterlife. He is a public enemy and a villain to his people."

Conspiracy in the Twittersphere. Trisha Jha tweets yesterday:

IF Arbib is a US informant, and he was key in deposing Kevin Rudd, does that mean Australia joins Latin America as a country victim of coup?

Ducking for cover. Kevin Rudd on Channel 7's Sunrise on Wednesday:

ARE we waiting for a diplomatic cable which says Kevin Rudd is a witty, charming, relaxed, down-home sort of guy who is constantly cracking jokes and does everything we want him to do? Of course not. Frankly, mate, it's water off a duck's back.

Ellen Fanning interviews Dr Death on 60 Minutes, March 4, 2007:

FANNING: Did you mind being called that?

Rudd: Oh, water off a duck's back.

Simon Crean with Neil Mitchell on 3AW, July 6, 2004:

CREAN: They had that silly Costello going around saying I was conceived in the back of a Comcar or something. You had Abbott going on about the aristocracy in Labor families. These are personal things that some take offence at. Water off a duck's back to me, quite frankly

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