By Katharine Murphy
ISN'T Mark Arbib having a jolly time of it lately?
Fresh from blowing $45 million or so on Australia's attempt to host the World Cup soccer sometime between now and the culmination of the grand cycle of evolution, and his startlingly 'helpful' foray sticking it to Julia Gillard on gay marriage, we have this morning's revelations (via WikiLeaks) that Arbib chatted amiably to his friends the Americans about incipient leadership tensions within the government back in 2009.
Quite the humanitarian our Mark.
We'd had Arbib pegged as Sports Minister, factional powerbroker, king maker, a man of 1000 complicated political intrigues, but not yet James Bond, or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.
But we have the Americans to thank for today's fresh take on a political player fast gaining cult status in Canberra for his capacity to create drama even where none exists: The name is Mark, "Aussie" Mark.
Barnaby Joyce has already celebrated the makeover by issuing a borderline incomprehensible press release about Arbib "moonlighting as some type of political double agent" and quoting portions of Apocalypse Now. Hopefully no-one from the Coalition is about to be outed by that bad Mr Assange for giving the Americans a heads-up about their leadership coups.
Obviously Mark Arbib is not a spy. Cute joke, and unfortunately Arbib has left himself open to a barrage of water cooler humour, but suggesting that seriously is ridiculous.
But the cables give us an intriguing window on our politicians' dialogue with Washington.
Hats off first of all to the Americans who clearly possess a commendable grasp of Labor's internecine factional politics.
Hats off too to Arbib who is clearly assiduous, particularly when cultivating his own personal mythology as the man in the centre of things.
This mythology is essential currency for a political character like the NSW Senator: you can't wield power if you don't seek it, cultivate it, use it.
Power seeks power. Arbib has wandered along the well trodden path of the Right of the Labor Party cultivating relationships with the world's most significant superpower never imagining that his conversations with American diplomats would become public.
Hats off first of all to the Americans who clearly possess a commendable grasp of Labor's internecine factional politics.
Poor old Mark Arbib.
Bad old WikiLeaks. It's nasty. It's unfair.
It's truly horrible to wake up in a snow storm in your underpants.
Ask some of his victims.
The new cables reinforce the now stereotypical notion of Arbib as a compulsive player: reassuring on Gillard who is "one of the most pragmatic politicians in the ALP" (I don't know why this sounds vaguely ominous), ratting on Rudd pre-emptively in 2009 before he and others ratted on the Prime Minister for real in 2010.
It's all garden variety politics, but it's a bad look for Mark Arbib.
Worse, it potentially reflects and amplifies concern among some voters that this is a government so preoccupied with its own perfidy and half-baked intrigues that it can't maintain focus on the things that matter to voters.
Of course this last out-take is unfair.
Gillard is doing everything she can to get the government on its feet, set some goals, and establish a set of priorities to manage in 2011.
Unfortunate for her then that these distractions keep coming.
Katharine Murphy is Age national affairs correspondent.
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