A number of people who saw or heard Kevin Rudd’s speech to Australian troops in Afghanistan spotted that the Prime Minister’s normally careful phraseology lapsed into dropped Gs, gunnas and other rather relaxed forms of expression while he talked to our boys.

Steve Leibman compared it to Rudd’s UN speech and asked “will the real Kevin Rudd stand up?”

Well, the answer is, both are the real Rudd — or at least, both are equally real. Rudd’s hardly the first politician to speak differently depending on the circumstances. Most, rightly, adjust their delivery style and vocabulary (assuming they have a vocabulary to start with) to match their audiences. It’s called effective communication and, given the range of different roles politicians have to play, essential.

Rudd, however, does it more than most and it has been a trademark of his rise to power. He adopts a different persona depending on the circumstances, an approach he honed to perfection on Sunrise, where he played a sort of down-to-earth wonk and all-round good bloke, entirely belying his background as a diplomat and former chief of staff.

His distinctly D-demographic language to the soldiers was a slight variant on this, and indeed the only surprise was that he didn’t throw in a few f–ks and c–ts.

The “real” Kevin Rudd is entirely out of sight, hidden by whatever guise he is wearing at the time, and things will probably remain that way for the rest of his political life.

In this way, he’s vastly different to most of his recent predecessors, whom we all felt we knew reasonably well. The only comparison is probably Malcolm Fraser, who didn’t bother to adopt different guises but merely hid everything under that stony Easter Island face.