The truth is, when it comes to booze and womanising, Kevin Rudd just doesn’t cut it. The Scores affair is amateur hour stuff, a night on the turps that reveals Kevin .07 as an absolute innocent. He’ll need to do a lot more than make a single semi-conscious visit to a lap bar if he’s going to make a mark on the honour roll of louche, libidinous and lubricated politicians …

Bob Hawke — boozer, womanizer; a lifetime of big nights out, even dumped his wife for his biographer. 

Billy Snedden — died on the job fer chrissakes, though the ”loaded” condom in question, rumoured to be a designer label, is yet to surface on eBay.

Malcolm Fraser — lost his pants after a big night in Memphis and don’t get us started on the cocktail onions. 

John Curtin — a recovering alcoholic and Labour icon.

Bill Clinton — one big night after another, some involving cigars, the Oval Office and dry-cleaning, which is just another unacceptable layer of high-risk behaviour.

FDR — had a mistress throughout his presidency

JFK — no record of the number of mistresses, though there are tales of almost daily turnover. As a president he made a servicable er-ction.

John Major — his affair with health secretary Edwina Currie is about the only thing that ever tweaked the shirt from his underpants.  

Name a French president — to not have a mistress would be an electoral liability.

Then there’s the other nagging question in this whole Rudd-Scores affair: it seems inconceivable that Kevin Rudd can have done anything so politically defining without taking a lead from his mentor, the man whose shining example he so shamelessly mimics. So if Kevin went to an east side lap bar, what is John Howard hiding?