To be a successful politician you've got to have a fair bit of the mongrel in you and Beazley simply didn't. You also have to deliver short, simple messages instead of painstakingly explaining the complexities of a situation and he couldn't do that either.Yet he had enough political nous to be able to weld the mutually hostile factions that make up the Australian Labor Party into something resembling if not a well-disciplined army, then at least a semi-cohesive rabble in arms.
Beazley was a failure as a politician.
He should be very proud of that.
His failure is that sometimes it really is simple. The backflips he attempted trying to hold to the official party line over Iraq, when he so obviously agreed with the Government's policy, were painful to see, and wholly unconvincing. He was trying so very hard to maintain party unity, while actually having some principles, you see.
Beazley wasn't a good politician : he might have made a good statesman though.
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