If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.
Wouldn’t that have turned into a mighty uncomfortable piece of rhetorical over-reach?
Remembering back to the days of yore when Latham called Bush “the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory”, the condemnation gushing from one particular end of the press was deafening.
Would we have seen the same faux-outrage directed at Howard that has been consistently directed at Latham by the Bolts, the Sheridans, the Shanahans, the Albrechtsens, the Milnes and the rest of the assorted gaggle of Coalition leg humpers?
After all, being incompetent and dangerous is one thing – but suggesting that lab tests demonstrate 4 out of 5 terrorists prefer President Obama is another thing entirely.
Howard’s departure does have something of an unexpected silver lining for this particular mob – they don’t have to engage in an acute bout of public humiliation and rank hypocrisy by trying to justify the actions of a bloke that wasn’t only wrong – but on the wrong side of history.
Sometimes I think it’s unfortunate that we’ll never get to enjoy watching such a spectacle.
But only for a moment.
UPDATE:
And Jon Kudelka doing it in the way that only he can.
14 Comments
He would have been squirming in his batik shirt at the next APEC meeting, while everyone else was glad-handing.
What a prawn.
You are assuming the Coalition leg humpers (he he, that’s fabulous) experience emotions like shame or humility. The fact that any of them are still generating take-away wrapping strongly suggests they don’t revisit previous diatribes that have since been shown to be hypocritical and/or wrong.
Howard himself would be ignoring any queries on this comment and just crapping on about how under Labour interest rates would be much higher. This makes me wonder just how low interest rates would be now under a coalition government. Can the reserve bank set interest rates to negative?
Yeah but you can turn that around on the Left as well- how interfering in domestic US politics was laudable when Latham did it and suddenly became an outrage when it was Howard. And since both Latham and Obama had to strongly moderate their anti-war position come election time it would have been easy for the Right to proclaim a victory of the “they’ve been forced to adopt our position” kind. Rudd I am sure was more supportive of the war personally despite the party rhetoric.
It does seem despite deep public cynicism over the war, they still won’t elect a leader explicitly opposed to it. Possibly the “success” (relatively) of the Surge neutralised the issue somewhat.
I almost would’ve put up with another term of Howard in office just to watch him shake Obama’s hand for the first time.
Almost.
Poss
I expect Howard would have denied he said it,or said he was misquoted,or he hadn’t meant it that way,or that actually it was John howard the actor.
I couldn’t even afford a moment to think Howie would have won
*shudders*
I was wondering the same thing…
http://www.kudelka.com.au/?p=432
heh!
Love the hair curlers!
Where’s his Deputy Sherriff badge?
Just two hair curlers, both on the right side, might work, on his head.
jon kudelka
Maybe it was a “non-core” insult, and he never ever said it, or he has an ASIO file that shows Obama in bed with Osama?
The difference is MDM.. Latham was right. Sure, he was a loose cannon, but even a loose cannon can hit the target on occasion.
According to the Libs, they did not lose the election at all. They simply did not win enough seats to form Government. However, it was all a slip of the pencil by an ungrateful proletariat and that just can’t be allowed to stand.
oh – the 1972-1975 situation again.. thank goodness they don’t have a sniff of controlling the Senate
Direct @ MDMConnell, #3
“Yeah but you can turn that around on the Left as well- how interfering in domestic US politics was laudable when Latham did it and suddenly became an outrage when it was Howard.”
Uh, no… we on the “Left” were happy for Latham to say what he did because it was true. You only need to look at how Americans themselves have treated that imbesile war-monger Bush & Co during his second term.
Also, and more importantly, Latham called the President ELECT incompetent/dangerous after what was obvious to everyone (i.e. War on Terror = BS). Howard was trying to poison the man that WOULD BE President with hyberbole and an exagerated fear of unknown “others”. Think about it.