Carl Scully: Dotty?

At first glance, this one sounded so weird you had to wonder if it came out of the opposition camp ... Carl Scully's office has reportedly offered his childhood finger paintings to the media for perusal.

Why? Because someone leaked an ethically wonky paper he wrote in 1992 to caucus members in an effort to discredit him. Scully's response was to offer his finger paintings and year 9 geography assignment, seeing them as equally relevant (come on ... in 1992 a lot of us were saying Vanilla Ice was onto a good thing).

You have to feel sorry for Scully. You have to feel sorry for everyone, in fact. Craig Knowles ruled himself out by having too many shandies and driving home. Scully, who has been gunning for the leadership for years and, who knows, might have done a good job of it, is out of luck given the endless barbs the Opposition would throw at a premier whose last job was to make sure NSW's trains come on time (and, as in so many cases, it's the minister who comes in with the Spray and Wipe who largely gets blamed for the pile of mess). Andrew Refshauge, as he so bluntly put it when initially asked, has `factional issues', despite having wide public support. In other words - Sussex St doesn't like Lefties. And even despite this, leftie John Watkins is apparently considering running - or, in a rather nasty twist, trying to pull the rug from under Refshauge.

And amidst all of this, there's Morris Iemma. The question everyone seems to be asking is: who? (in answer to the other one: it's pronounced `Yemma'). Despite being unkindly described by Scully's team as `Barry Unsworth without the cardie', I have to say that My Sources know Iemma to be a genuinely nice, straight-down-the-line, pleasant-bloke-to-have-a-barbecue-with kind of guy. He's no Carr, but neither was Carr when he started out.

As Carmel Tebbutt put it this morning on ABC 702, all will be revealed ...