Mark Latham's apparently bottomless rage is confoundingly hard to fathom. How often has this world been so unfeasibly kind to such a man?

As a student at Hurlstone Agricultural High, then at the University of Sydney and then as a local councillor, Latham was the beneficiary of the fruits of one of the great progressive movements of the world, dedicated not only to lifting working men out of poverty, but out of social and spiritual drudgery. He went on to become the protege of one of the great architects of the movement, Gough Whitlam, and eventually even its leader in his own right for an odd, angry period.

Even after his parliamentary career ended, he seemed blessed. On a generous public pension he focused on raising his children and supporting his wife's legal career, his diary was edited by the nation's most prominent publisher, and it turned out he was gifted with talent too. The man can really write.

But, as long as he was on the public stage, that anger shimmered and glinted, always just in view. During his campaign against then prime minister John Howard, Latham loomed over him during a chance meeting and sought to crush his hand in an adolescent pantomime of a greeting. As an MP he scooted without charge after he broke the arm of a taxi driver during an altercation over a fare.