Anti-corruption campaign runs away from politicians

The Howard regime, in their desperation to destroy Kevin Rudd, accused him of corruption. I always though this was a case of people in a glasshouse throwing stones, and now it is clear that those stones have broken more of the Coalition glasshouse than the Labor glasshouse they were launched at.

This is great to watch, because a fight between the two parties on the corruption of their rival can only show up their mutual corruption and lead to a general reduction of corruption in public life in the short-term.

This can be an important ground on which to fight, since anti-corruption campaigning can go much further. Essentially, bourgeois democracy under capitalism is corruption, given that both the major parties are completely tainted by the patronage of capital. I think the mass of the public would support measures to clamp down on such patronage, and this glasshouse stone-fight provides a moment of opportunity to push such an agenda. Of course, there is both a lack of a force capable of pushing it forward, and of course a lack of a non-corrupt media willing to publicize it to the masses.