We’ve been debating whether to write an editorial comment about SA Premier Mike Rann’s current predicament (in the form of a most inconvenient former friend who keeps popping up at parties and awkwardly, on radio …) — but we now defer to this letter from Crikey reader Charles F Kane, who put it best:

When Grahame Dudley writes that he’s “totally disinterested in (Mike Rann’s) private life”, he misses the point. It’s also beside the point that personally, I love a salacious scandal.

So what is the point? Well it’s Rann’s honesty, or otherwise. Rann went on record immediately after Chantelois alleged they’d had sexual intercourse, and denied that claim.

But … if nothing happened, why was Chantelois’ husband so upset that he whacked Rann with a newspaper? If nothing happened, why didn’t Rann sue Chantelois for defamation? If nothing happened, why is Chantelois so publicly and repeatedly asserting that it did? If nothing happened, why would Chantelois go through multiple polygraphs on topic? If nothing happened, why was Channel Seven’s statement of 14 February so glaring in what it didn’t say?

Adulterous politicians are one thing. But lying politicians are another.

In this case, we have to concur with Citizen Kane.