Howard's Rage

Opposition leader Brendan Nelson has tried being a shiny, happy person, as he toured Australia "listening", but with serial-killer levels of public approval, Nelson's remaking of the Liberal Party leadership clearly hasn't worked.

Former Liberal leader, and ex-prime minister, John Howard, suggests a new strategy :

John Howard last night urged Liberal Party faithful to maintain the rage, saying they should work hard to get out of Opposition and promising a federal Liberal government "will come again".

"Rage against opposition," he said. "Work as hard as you can to get out of opposition as soon as you can.

"Opposition is a dismal position in politics. I had my share of opposition, I had 13 years of it, and I hated every year of it, I hated every week of it."

So much hate, for so many years.

John Howard seems to have delayed his promise to fade away quietly, and not become like other ex-MPs, always giving speeches and making public comments and critiques. Maybe next year.

Book Wars : Howard Vs Costello

Biographer : "Howard Is This Automaton"

Costello The Messiah...No Wait, He's Not The Messiah

Former prime minister, John Howard, apparently has five publishers interested in his autobiography, but former treasurer Peter Costello has already got his deal done, the writing has begun and it is expected to briefly hog shelf space in bookstores from early October.

The betting, before the books are even completed, is that Costello will turn in the better tale, which will mostly be written by his father-in-law, Peter Coleman, a former editor of The Bulletin.

The hope is that the book's publication will mark the end of Costello's political career, instead of a new beginning. Why?

If Costello intends to take a run at leader of the Liberal Party (and really, why would he?), you would expect the book to go easy on Howard, on the Liberals in general, mock Labor generously and ramp up the potential of a victorious return to power for the Liberals, starting anywhere. That means, not a lot of sales outside the hard core ranks of Australian conservatives.

But if Costello is heading for the door (and really, why would he stay?) we might get a conservative rival to Mark Latham's spectacular napalming of Labor in The Latham Diaries, full of bite, bile and venom.

That is no doubt the hope of Costello's publisher, Melbourne University Press, and whatever newspaper will fork out $30,000 to $60,000 for the serialisation rights.

More here :

Peter Costello may finally take the top slot from his old boss John Howard in a battle of memoirs, according to a biographer of the former prime minister.

ANU academic Wayne Errington, who co-wrote last year's controversial John Winston Howard: The Biography, said Mr Costello was the more attractive prospect.

"Howard and Costello both gave us a lot of their time and, generally speaking, Costello was much more interesting," he said.

"He's more human. Howard is this automaton who is hugely focused and disciplined while Costello, and I know this is a terrible cliche, is definitely the bloke you'd rather have a beer with."

Interestingly, the writer of the Costello book, Peter Coleman, ripped into John Howard after the Liberal Party's election massacre.

"What was once seen as his gritty determination started to look like an almost animal egomania and he seemed to be blocking progress and regeneration, rather than advancing the cause," Mr Coleman said.

He claimed that Mr Howard destroyed Mr Costello's chance to be prime minister. "There is no doubt that this man of great promise and great ability was blocked by Howard's egomania," he said.

It'd be hard to imagine Coleman won't entrench those views, obviously shared with Peter Costello, in the new book. The publishers are clearly expecting this, and much, much more.

John Howard, eating his breakfast alone and reading the papers, as is his daily morning habit, must have a few seconds where he found it hard to swallow when he read the news of Costello's book.

What will he say about me? Howard must have wondered, What will he reveal?

Winter began early for Howard yesterday morning.


The best coverage on the surreal hyping of Peter Costello returning to lead the Liberal Party and the announcement of his book deal naturally comes from Andrew Bolt, the Murdoch paid Liberal Party propagandist, and talking points provider, who can't even rely on the Liberals to leak him early news of actual interest anymore.

This is fantastic stuff from Bolt. Hail! Costello The Messiah Returns!

Costello retains a lot of respect in the electorate, making him preferred as Liberal leader to Turnbull, who is still inexperienced, unwilling to take advice and an ideological work in progress.

A Costello/Turnbull team would give the Liberals terrific credibility...

Costello has to get over his past resentments and seize his future.

...the Liberals must en masse ask him to take over.

...the leadership is there for his asking. And truly, his party needs him.

What news that Bolt didn't know was coming could turn that rancid fluff into pure bogwater? This - Oh Wait, The Messiah's Not Returning And...He's Taking Cash From The Publisher of Mark Latham and Antony Lowenstein :

Costello might be about to burn bridges rather than build them, unless he resists the impulse to get square:

Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) today said it would publish Mr Costello’s memoirs of his 18-year political career.

But you can at least gather from this Costello isn’t going anywhere that will demand plenty of his time, if he’s settling down for a long write.

Absolute bollocks, but pure comedy gold.

Costello wouldn't get more than $50,000 for his biography (he's believed to be getting around $150,000) unless the publisher knew in advance that Costello was going to use the book to leave at least a mildly impressive trail of smoke-belching burning bridges in his wake, heartily embracing the opportunity to get square, in public, and well before Howard's own tome wheezes onto the shelves.


The best part of the 2007 federal election remains the moment when John Howard had declared defeat and announced he would back Peter Costello as the new Liberal Party leader, with Howard all but begging Costello to come up onto the stage and allow Howard to officially anoint him.

Cut to Peter Costello standing in the crowd, looking casual and pissed, grimly grinning his answer back to the man who had done so much to make his life a frustrating, humiliating existence : Not fucking likely, mate, not fucking likely.

Howard's Helping/Non-Helping Hand

Back home after his trip to the United States to collect six figures worth of Iraq War blood money from his NeoCon backers, former prime minister John Howard has offered a "helping hand" to demoralised, PTSD-crippled Liberals.

But did Howard offer a "helping hand" to temporary Liberal leader Brendan "I'm Going Nowhere..." Nelson?

Sydney's Daily Telegraph says yes, he did :

Howard Offers To Help Embattled Nelson

FORMER prime minister John Howard says he is willing to help the Liberal Party and its embattled leader Brendan Nelson with the "difficult job" of being in opposition.

But The Australian newspaper says no, he didn't :

Howard Slow To Offer Helping Hand

JOHN Howard helped the Liberal Party raise much-needed funds at a dinner thrown in his honour in Brisbane last night, but there was no helping hand for his successor, Brendan Nelson, as he battles through a fierce bout of leadership speculation.

The Sydney Morning Herald offers up this Howard pearler from the speech :

(Howard admitted) his diplomacy needed work. Asked at a function at the George H. W. Bush presidential library in Texas to name his top three achievements, he started with gun control.

No-one in the Texas audience clapped.

Howard won't offer his total support for Brendan Nelson because he probably believes that if the chaos, back-stabbing and plunging poll numbers for Nelson and the Liberals continue, he just might get another shot at running for prime minister. Just like his hero Menzies.

He won't take the offer (well,probably not), but he sure is going to get a chub when they ask him, or when the rumours begin that Howard might be making a return to politics.

UPDATE : The Australian lead editorial sinks a hilariously righteous boot into Howard for being too conservative and not embracing the "symbolism" that is supposedly making Rudd so popular right now :

...the popularity of the Prime Minister and Labor is going through the roof because it has taken a whole lot of easy symbolic actions that were easy to identify years ago. Mr Howard's long-standing refusal to offer an apology to the Stolen Generations or sign the Kyoto Protocol may have limited his ability to act. A change of heart by Mr Howard on these issues may have been seen by voters as a sign of political desperation. But given the opportunity, Mr Costello may have been able to freshen up the image of conservative forces to reflect the expectations of modern Australia and take some of the easy benefits now being showered on Mr Rudd.

With Brendan Nelson struggling to get out of single figures in the opinion polls, what does this say about the long-term assessment of the Howard years? That by being too conservative and refusing to reflect contemporary views, Mr Howard has destroyed the conservative side he served.

The Australian rails on Howard for being too conservative....what more needs to be said?

Howard Speaks...More Guff And Twaddle

'Conservative' Losers Claim Victory, For Losing

By Darryl Mason

John Howard has given his first interview since his humiliating election annihilation in November last year. Don't get too excited there, Howard's interview is about as dry and lifeless as a warm glass of salt and sand. But then, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

More interesting than most of what Howard has to say, is who he decided to say it to. That would be Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian newspaper.

You remember Janet, surely? She was the one who told Howard a few months out from the 2007 election that he had to quit, for the good of the Liberal Party, and for the ultimate benefit of Australian conservatism.

Here's a little flashback from Janet :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Of course, that column from Janet, back in September, 2007, didn't come as a complete shock to Howard. How could it? Janet rang Howard's office to let him know what she was publishing, before she even wrote it :

She's not an independent columnist, with scant regard for the impact of her opinion, as a truly fearless and uncompromising columnist must be. She is a propaganda outlet for John Howard, and has been a key player in the current game of "Howard Must Quit"/"Howard Must Stay" that has dominated political media coverage for the past eight days. The Game that is meant to show just how tough and resilient Howard can be, and how ready he is for the Big Fight in the coming election. And it all took place just when Howard needed it the most, when he is absolutely tanking in the polls....

In trying to fill in the gaps around the dull Howard quotes in her story - it being painfully obvious that he has little of anything fresh or interesting to say - Janet sprays a fresh coat of much-needed varnish on her Monty Python-absurdity level theory that Howard's hammering in the election, and the evisceration of the Liberal Party in general, actually means that conservatism is victorious in Australia :

Howard’s critics still don’t get it. In the sweep of history, conservatism has triumphed.

Since the election of the Rudd Government, the familiar refrain is that conservatism is beat. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that the right-left labels no longer apply. Yet, Rudd eagerly embraced much of the conservative agenda.

Yes, she's right. Rudd did embrace "much of the conservative agenda". That would be the "conservative agenda" of saying 'Sorry' to Aborigines, ratifying Kyoto, culling politicians' perks, pulling combat troops out of Iraq, nixing nuclear power, ramping up renewable energy programs, rewiring the Australian economy to deal with climate change, embracing carbon trading, obliterating WorkChoices and on and on.

You know, the 'New Conservatism'. It's not much like the old Howard conservatism, but it's far more popular and reflective of the Australia that most Australians want to live in.

Janet actually sums up the John Howard of 2008 perfectly in the story's intro :

For Howard, it is history that counts. And he is confident that history is on his side.

As long as people like Janet are writing the history, that is.

Some more desperate myth-making from Janet :

To be sure, Howard bears much of the blame for the final stain that tarnishes his record. After all, a leader is inevitably defined by their last act in office. Howard’s failure to heed the advice of his senior Liberal colleagues to hand over the leadership to Peter Costello last September will always be remembered as a final act of hubris. Deciding to stay on, preferring to be remembered by history as a fighter, not a quitter, knowing that electoral defeat was ahead, his leadership record would be indelibly marked down.

Keep spinning the myth, Janet, that if Costello became leader in September, election victory would have been in the bag. Dozens of polls in Janet's own newspaper reported all through 2007 that while Howard remained largely popular with voters, the Liberal Party, as in the primary political entity of Australian conservatism, was dying a long overdue death.

If the following quote from John Howard is anything to go by, he might want to check with medical professionals to see that at least a few of his neural pathways are still lighting up before he opens his mouth :

“The most constant comment made in the lead-up to the last election is that Rudd was trying to be a younger version of me. And there is some truth to that ... He did not win because he was different. He won because he was like me.”

Actually the most "constant comment" in the lead-up to the last election was that Howard was a tired old man, fresh out of ideas.

Poor John. He really did believe all that crap about Rudd being "a younger version of Howard" spouted by the likes of Janet, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and most of the op-ed writers of The Australian.

For those who were recently claiming that John Howard will never become like former prime ministers Paul Keating, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, popping up in the media waffling embarrassing piffle, it's too late. Howard's clearly ready now to take his place in the all-singing, all-dancing cast of Nutty Old PMs Who Can't Stop Talking Absolute Bollocks.

It's hard to decide what is more pathetic, and sad. The delusional propaganda from media-stacking conservatives like Janet Albrechtsen that they really won the election by losing the election, or the fact that Howard now clearly believes the line that Rudd is "a younger, better looking Howard" and that's the only reason why Labor was victorious.

Doesn't John Howard know that irony-rich line was dreamed up and distributed, via phone calls and boozy lunches to Howard Huggers, like Janet, by his own media strategists?

They say you shouldn't believe your own press. But in Howard's case, he shouldn't believe turd-polishing propaganda that originated from his own office and PR people, no matter how attractive and ego-inflating it may be.

Expect John Howard to be writing a weekly column for The Australian by June. He should feel right at home.

The Big Loser Speaks


John Howard : proud recipient of treasured NeoCon-approved crystal salad bowl

John Howard gleefully accepts a big fat NeoCon pay cheque for forcing Australia into adding some international legitimacy to the Iraq War, against the will of the vast majority of Australians, and finally speaks to his people...in the United States :

'I'm Absolutely Shameless And You're The Only Friends I Have Left, Please Pay Me $50,000'

Unfortunately for the Liberals, and conservatives (we'll list them as separate to the "we're with you Mr Rudd" Liberal Party because it seems to make the conservatives happy) who were hoping the Big Loser would light their way forward with some much needed illumination, and inspiration, Howard is still flogging the same load of old wank that lost him the election.

American NeoCons like to reward their international lickspittles with 'tours' of US 'think tanks'. Of course Howard got a hero's welcome at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday. Why wouldn't he? The American war industries that fund so many of these 'think tanks' have seen profits soar majestically since 9/11, while other American industries have spluttered to a halt and laid off millions of workers.

The AEI loves Howard. He's as hollow and shameless as they are.

Howard did what he was told in Washington in the days after September 11, 2001, and committed Australia to the War On Iraq without consulting his own government, the opposition, or even engaging the Australian people and asking what them what they thought.

Now Howard is getting his blood money.

Australia Declares "Mission Accomplished" In Iraq

By Darryl Mason

When Australian special forces joined the American war to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in late 1990, a t-shirt that simply said "Fuck Iraq" became as popular as Guns N' Roses merchandise in suburban Australia.

"Fuck Iraq" also became a fast way to strike down any pub conversation about the impending war. You didn't need to hold an opinion on Iraq War I (or The Gulf War), as it was more than acceptable at the time to mutter "Ahh, fuck Iraq" if you were asked what you thought about George HW Bush Vs Saddam Hussein.

"Fuck Iraq" meant "fuck the Iraqis", it also meant "fuck that place", "fuck Saddam" and "fuck if I give a shit."

No interest, no opinion either way, was no big deal back then.

But for Iraq War II (or more accurately The War On Iraq), you had to have an opinion. You were either for or against the war, and and all were for the Iraqi people.

You weren't allowed to say "fuck the Iraqis". That was far, far worse than saying "Fuck Bush" or "Fuck Howard."

For or against the War On Iraq, everybody seemed to argue that the people of Iraq were the first priority of concern...okay, maybe second priority behind your own armed forces. But close.

We were there to save the Iraqis this time. Not to fuck them.

This wasn't a war against the people of Iraq, we were repeatedly told, it was a war to disarm Saddam Hussein of his WMDs....then it was a war to find Saddam's WMDs....then it was a war to bring order to Baghdad after mass rioting and looting and the first wave of IED attacks...then it was a war to catch Saddam....or his sons....and then it was a war to see justice served up on Saddam's snapped neck...and then it was a war to escort democratic elections under armed guards to the people of Iraq....then it was a war to pacify Fallujah, again...then it was a war to train Iraqi forces....then it was a war to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq...then it was a war to save democracy in Iraq by supporting the newly elected and thoroughly Iran-allied government
...then it was a war to secure the kind of peace that would allow large-scale troop withdrawals
...then it was a war that couldn't be stopped because it would make the Coalition of the Willing (Few) look weak to jihadists across the planet....

But it was never a war against the people of Iraq. Unless they were insurgents, or heavily armed and objected to 4am raids and a kicked in front door. Which was a lot of Iraqis. Or if they had been unemployed for six months and took $50 to dig holes for IEDs along American supply lines.
It wasn't "Fuck Iraq" this time, it was "Save The Iraqis". Those not trying to kill CoW(F) soldiers anyway, even though it was almost impossible to determine who was who in the ghettos of Baghdad, Basra and Fallujah.

John Howard committed Australian troops to the War On Iraq within days of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington DC. As a witness to the attack on the Pentagon, Howard was right there in American capital during some of the most tumultuous days in American history. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were discussed before Howard left Washington DC and flew home.

The 'War On Terror', from its genesis, was never simply about finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and crushing Al Qaeda. It was always planned, and discussed, in the White House, in Downing Street, in Kirribilli House, as a war on terrorists and those who supported them, funded them, sheltered them. Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan were from day one viewed by the war's planners as future locations for combat or special operations to kill terrorists. Howard signed on.

John Howard allowed the Australian Defence Forces to start ramping up the numbers of Australian servicemen in the Gulf in mid-2002. Australia sent hundreds of soldiers and sailors to the Gulf in the last three months of 2002, many of whom knew that they were going there for a war, despite the evening news claiming Howard had still not made a decision.

For the three months before Australian and American rockets and missiles ploughed into Baghdad and other targets, in March 2003, Howard refused to confirm the common knowledge in Canberra, in news media editors offices, and shared amongst nearly every military family in the country, that he had told President Bush Australian troops were committed to fighting the War On Iraq, and that Australians were in the Gulf to fight the war.

Howard needed to lie about the fact that Australians and Americans were there to fight a war, regardless of what did or didn't happen in the United Nations Security Council, because so many Australians were opposed to it. When 1 in 20 Australians took to the streets of every major city in Australia to protest the coming War On Iraq, Howard and his supplicant media drones tried to vilify every single protester, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, by claiming their opposition to the illegal use of military force was like giving comfort to Saddam Hussein. By March 2003, more than 70% of Australians were opposed to military action in Iraq.

Howard finally relented and confirmed Australian forces were committed to fighting the War On Iraq a few hours after the first missiles were fired. He then said Australians would be in Iraq "for months, not years" and then lied, or dodged, about the reasons for the war and why Australian soldiers could not come home for dozens of months more.

There's no doubt that Howard's refusal to listen to the will of the Australian people on Iraq played a factor in his humiliating defeat last November.

Howard knew by April-May 2007 that as far as the Australian Army was concerned, they'd done their duty in training up Iraqi police and security forces and keeping safe provinces in Southern Iraq. They were preparing to withdraw most of their combat forces, and start the long process of restocking and repairing and replacing gear, equipment, weapons and vehicles damaged or lost during the years of desert deployment. This decision was made months before Howard called the election. And he knew that. Howard couldn't force the Australian Army to stay in Iraq, and the decision had been made to withdraw.

So why didn't Howard come clean and tell the Australian people that if elected, he, like Rudd, would oversee the withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq in mid-2008? And why did foreign minister Alexander Downer shout in Parliament that even thinking about "cutting and running" from Iraq was giving in to "the terrorists" when he already knew Australian troops were coming home?

Howard's bizarre refusal to confirm what the military, and military families in particular, along with various news media editors and thousands of public servants, already knew as a fact was a repeat of his scandalous behaviour at the start of the war.

His stubborness, his inability to come clean to the Australian people on the end of the Iraq War, as with its beginning, helped to lose him the election. It wasn't the only reason, but Howard's barely believable illusion-weaving throughout four years of war only encouraged Australians to wonder about his honesty when it came to other vital issues, like interest rates, like WorkChoices. Howard's hundreds of spin-filled, forced-empathy hollowed interviews about the Iraq War planted millions of seeds of doubt - we can't trust him on Iraq, so why should we trust him when he says we won't be worse off under IR changes?

The War On Iraq was not simply a heavy chain around Howard's neck, weighed down further by his man-love blushing over President Bush, it was a constant stream of bright sunlight, illuminating Howard's torturing of truth on numerous issues and exposing his inherent dishonesty.

History will record that Australia went to War On Iraq based on a concoction of outright lies, deception and selective use of downright dodgy intelligence, and all of it will indelibly stain Howard's place in the history books.

History will record that the Australian people's rejection of war in dealing with Iraq brought into the streets of our cities and towns the biggest mass-gatherings and protests ever seen.

History will also record that Australian special forces played a vital role in dissuading key Republican Guard majors and generals from backing Saddam Hussein, with suitcases full of cash, many weeks before the war officially began.

And history will record that Australian troops trained tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police personnel, helping to recruit former insurgents and militia men years before it became a policy of the American military to pay and train those who once tried to kill them.

And so we come to the official announcement that Australia's key military role in the War On Iraq has ended :

The chief of the Australian Defence Force has told a parliamentary committee it is time for Australian troops to leave Iraq.

The Federal Government has ordered Australian combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of the year.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says Iraqi forces have faced a number of challenges over the past 18 months and always come out on top without any major support from Australia.

"It's been a very pleasing outcome," he told a Senate estimates committee this morning.

"We have achieved our objectives in southern Iraq and frankly if you look at the two provinces, it's time to leave."

Air Chief Marshal Houston said Australia would still be engaged with Iraq through a broader program focused on training, including bringing members of the Iraqi forces to Australia.

"We will be providing training in Australia," he confirmed.

Houston confirms Australian troops would have pulled out of Iraq in 2008 even if John Howard won the election :

Air Chief Marshal Houston said both al-Muthanna and Dhi Qar provinces had been under Iraqi security control for almost two years.

"We have seen very pleasing results from the (Iraqi) security forces deployed in the two provinces," he said.

"They have had a number of security challenges over the months and they have come out on top without any support from us . . .

"When you look at the two provinces, it is time to leave."

Australia's withdrawal was likely to have happened even if the federal coalition had retained government at the last election, Air Chief Marshal Houston said

UPDATE : In an earlier ABC News report, the story claimed that "Australia sent troops into Iraq in March 2003 in support of the US push to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein."

Even the notorious House Of Evil Lefties, according to the nuts and Bolts, has finally brought the new myth, and reported it as fact, that Australia joined the War On Iraq to overthrow Saddam.

But only for a few hours. Commenters pointed out that this was a complete lie, and that Australia went to War On Iraq to stop Saddam from firing his alleged WMDs into England within 45 minutes, or giving non-existent nuclear weapons to Osama Bin Laden.

Here's the ABC News corrected version of why we went to War On Iraq :

"Australian troops have been in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003."

No reason at all is given now.

Howard Just Won't Go Away

Former Prime Minister Ready To Collect His Iraq Blood Money From NeoCons And American War Industries

Yet another example of the incredible arrogance and utterly oblivious-to-reality character of former prime minister John Howard. Within weeks of losing the federal election, all but destroying the Australian conservative movement and bailing out as leader of the Liberal Party, Howard was on the phones begging to be installed as party president. Incredible :

Party sources confirmed that Mr Howard put himself forward as the next Liberal Party president to replace outgoing Chris McDiven.

One source said that "Howard contacted people to make it known he wanted the presidency", but his candidacy was scoffed at by senior Liberals.

They were amazed he seemed to want a role so soon after the Liberals' worst defeat. "They told him, 'Don't be ridiculous'," a senior source said. "Howard wanted the presidency so he could control the review process the party was conducting into why the Howard Government lost and what needed to be done," another said.

"He wanted to control the way the history of the Howard Government was written."

Like his buddy George W. Bush, Howard is obsessed with how history will view his years in power, and how he will be portrayed by historians. It's already bad, and it's going to get much worse as official government records and reports of the Howard years are declassified.

It's not all bad news for Mr Howard, of course. He will be spending a few weeks, if not months, this year on tour in the US, gigging at NeoCon think-tanks, institutes and universities. Many of which, by sheer coincidence, receive millions in funding from American and Israeli war industries, arms dealers and bomb makers. Howard will likely receive at least one or two million dollars of Iraq War blood money for 'speaking engagements' as payback for his relentless help in creating the reality of the never-ending and very, very expensive 'War on Terror'.

Don't be at all surprised to see Howard scoring at least high six figures, or low seven figures, for his opinions and memories from a Rupert Murdoch publishing company while he's in the United States. If not for a book, then for a contract writing op-eds for the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch, like the world's biggest arms contractors, owe Howard big-time and Howard won't hold back from taking every dollar of blood money he can get.

After all, he's earned it. Hasn't he?

Howard Legacy Not So Pretty, Liberal-Party Loving Media Got Screwed

This piece by Michael Duffy, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald is one of the better short pieces looking at the Howard legacy, and it is a marker for Howard really will be remembered by historians and political addict alike. Duffy is particularly harsh on the Howard lackeys, propagandists and spin masters in the mainstream media for rarely holding Howard to account, or to even shine a harsh light on some of his more questionable policies and lack of reform :

There's a real possibility that people in the future, especially those on the right, will look back on the Howard years as we now view the Fraser ones: as a time of wasted opportunity.

The main achievement of both men was to bed down the reforms of their predecessor, in Malcolm Fraser's case Gough Whitlam's social policies, such as multiculturalism and changes to divorce law; in John Howard's case Bob Hawke's economic reforms.

The main claim made for the government is that it managed the economy well for 11 years, but the notion on which this is based, that governments these days actually do run the economy, is largely false. One reason it's false is that the Howard government gave the Reserve Bank more independence: it deserves credit for this, but the action further reduced the extent to which government can be said to "manage" the economy.

The main influences on the economy are various national and international trends, plus the hard work and ingenuity of the Australian people.

The Howard government deserves little credit for these.

Duffy then details how Howard failed to deliver on a number of nation-changing reforms, including the Aboriginal intervention, until it was all but too late...

Howard was able to get away with all this partly because we were in a boom where there was little demand for reform, and partly because the intellectual right did not criticise him sufficiently. Conservative and liberal commentators, think tanks and magazines got too close to the government and generally allowed the agenda of public debate to be set by politicians, rather than themselves.

In contrast, conservative governments in other countries receive more vigorous and wide-ranging comment and criticism from friends outside their ranks - just as Labor does in Australia.

Howard attended conservative and liberal functions and told those there how important they were. His attendance was most useful for fund-raising, but in the longer term I suspect he played the conservative movement for suckers.

They got played all right. Howard told them exactly what they wanted to hear, and the reaction from the committed-Liberals media was like that of a cult hearing from their leader about how he was going to lead them to paradise. Yet again.

The genuinely bizarre Quadrant dinner where John Howard basically said that those on the right were the saviours of the nation (from all those Evil Lefties) received not a word of caution or criticism from the likes of Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Janet Albretchson, Piers Akerman or Dennis Shanahan. They all fervently lapped up Howard's praise and lock-step agreed with him : "Yes, the prime minister is right. We really are wonderful and important!"

Of course, Howard screwed them all, in the end, and destroyed the Liberal Party as a political force for years to come.

Which is probably why so many once-proud Liberals are repeatedly referring to themselves as 'conservatives' instead of 'Liberals'.

Tears Of A Clown

Akerman's Latest Conspiracy Theory : Beware The "Third Force" In Australian Politics

By Darryl Mason

Liberal Party propagandist and, surely by sheer coincidence, Murdoch media columnist Piers Akerman is shocked, shocked and outraged, by the revelation that the union movement spent some $14 million dollars in 2006 and 2007 telling Australians workers how the now former Howard government's now former WorkChoices regime would eat into their paypackets and family time.

Incredibly, as he half-heartedly tries and fails to fire up some more union-related fear-mongery, Akerman doesn't even mention that the Liberal Party has now utterly dumped its WorkChoices regime and will not stand in the way of the Rudd government freeing Australian workers of it completely in the next few years. WorkChoices is dead and buried, and Brendan Nelson hand-carved its tombstone, but Piers hasn't noticed yet.

Akerman also clamps on his tin foil hat and becomes all conspiratorial as he warns of a "third force" in Australian politics. Outside of the "third force" that is the mainstream media, and the "third force" that is the public relations budgets of our largest corporations, and the "third force" that is the accumulated ad spending power of the business community and the "third force" that is the multi-million dollar budgets of energy and oil industry lobbyists.

He means that other "third force", the one he doesn't like much. The Unions, and GetUp. Boogah!

Akerman thinks it's disgusting that a bunch of unionists can raise millions of dollars at public rallies and spend that money on advertising their point of view. The hide of them participating in public debate and democracy like that. Shocking.

The ACTU funded the anti-WorkChoices advertising campaigns, to little opposition from its members. Whereas you, the taxpayers, funded the former Howard government's pro-WorkChoices advertising campaigns.

The former Howard government spent more than $17 million on advertising its WorkChoices boondoggle in less than 10 months, and that's only until mid-way through 2007. We still don't know how much of taxpayers money Howard And Friends blew flogging WorkChoices from July 2007 through to the eve of the election, but it's easily another $15-$20 million.

Of course, Piers Akerman mentions all this absolutely nowhere at all in his one-eyed screed.

Akerman also refuses to tell readers that former Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey had a report on his desk at the start of October, detailing how many taxpayers dollars his government was shoveling into its pro-WorkChoices campaign for the 2006-2007 financial year. Nor did Akerman report that Hockey refused to release that report before the election.

And here's some more details of the millions Howard And Friends blew marketing, hyping and generally flogging WorkChoices, which achieved little except annoying the hell out of television viewers every night for months on end :

More than $1 million was spent researching the effectiveness of the ads with the Open Mind Research Group.

And $12.6 million was spent buying advertising space for “welfare to work, support the system and workplace relations system campaigns”.

Dewey and Horton was paid $44,404.25 to take photos for Work Choices advertising while advertising agency Whybin/TBWA received $1.4 million for “creative services” that were part of the Work Choices campaign.

The final tally for the advertising and marketing alone on WorkChoices could hit more than $50-$60 million.

So out of control was Howard's ad blitzing on WorkChoices that in May, 2007, he had spent more on WorkChoices ads than he spent on national security awareness. Terrorists? What terrorists?

Akerman, like the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt, and like half the op-ed writers at The Australian, still can't believe that the Howard government lost the election, and the Labor Party is now in charge of country.

It's like some kind of waking nightmare for them all, and they've still got their fingers in their ears and their eyes squeezed tightly shut as they chant "This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening."

It'd be funny, if it wasn't so sad, bizarre and downright disturbing.

Bolt and Akerman are promoted by their respective newspapers as "leading journalists".

But leading journalists where exactly?

Andrew Bolt is having such a hard time adjusting to the new political reality of Australia that he has now abandoned his Herald Sun blog for more than a month, if not forever :

I hope and expect at this stage to be back in a few weeks - perhaps around Australia Day. I toyed with the idea of keeping the blog going during my holidays, but my wife got angry cross (wife’s edit) and I think I probably need the break, to be honest. I need to look around me for a while, read a bit more, draw breath and recalculate perspective.

Wuss.

Terrorists? What Terrorists? Howard Spends More Flogging WorkChoices Than He Does On National Security Awareness

May 2007 : WorkChoices Forces Grim Future On Workers - Millions Already Work Overtime For No Extra Pay

May 2007 : Taxpayers To Foot Astounding $110 Million And Counting Howard Advertising Bill

June 2007 : WorkChoices Killing Liberals' Election Chances - Millions Of Australians Demand Return of 40 Hour Working Week

June 2007 : Howard's Claim That Australian Families "Have Never Had It So Good" Will Haunt Him All The Way Into The Election

Howard's Final Betrayal

Try explaining the meaning of "non core promises" "caretaker period" and "election commitments" to a kid concerned about the fate of endangered orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo.

During the election campaign, Howard promised the kid he would help save the orangutans. Now the kid has been told Howard's bitterly cynical election stunt was meaningless :

The father of a Sydney boy with cerebral palsy claims his son was used for an election stunt by former prime minister John Howard.

Mr Howard paid a visit to the Terrey Hills home of 11-year-old Daniel Clarke on November 5, in the midst of the election campaign, to announce funds to save endangered orang-utans...

Daniel's father, Rodney Clarke, 40, said he has now been informed the $200,000 is no longer going ahead because it was an election promise.

"The prime minister looked into my son's eyes and made him a promise," he said.

"Daniel had worked so hard and faithfully to make a difference and at no time did the prime minister indicate that this commitment would be an election promise.

"My wife and I raise our children on values in which your word is your bond, which made it particularly difficult for us to explain the prime minister's actions to Daniel."

A letter from Malcolm Turnbull, dated November 9, confirms the funding and does not specify it as an election promise. It reads: "I am delighted to advise that the Australian Government has agreed to provide funding of $200,000 in 2007/08 to the Australian Orang-utan Project (AOP) to continue the valuable work of the orang-utan protection units."

Heritage Strategy Branch assistant secretary Greg Terrill withdrew the funding commitment in an email.

Turnbull's names on the letter saying funding had been agreed to, so why shouldn't he and Howard reach into their pockets to keep the promise made to Daniel?

Howard, of course, made sure the media was with him when he went to see Daniel Clarke and made his promise of funding to help save the orangutans. The media pit stop resulted in literally hundreds of newspaper stories, radio and television reports.

The bastards. They didn't even have the guts to send someone to see the kid face to face and explain what had happened.

That's downright cold.

Howard Finally Concedes Defeat

How Maxine McKew Won Her History-Making, Victory In The Battle For Bennelong


An excerpt from a photo by Brendan Esposito. Full image is here.

He waited as long as he possibly could to concede defeat, but former prime minister John Howard has finally turned up to congratulate Maxine McKew for winning the seat he had held for more than three decades. So much for McKew winning a "narrow victory." She romped home, scoring some 2400 more votes than Howard.

In the wake of the history-making election win by Kevin Rudd's Labor government, the stunning victory of former journalist Maxine McKew over John Howard in Bennelong has quickly faded from the headlines. To Howard's chagrin, however, it will feature prominently in every book written about the 2007 Election, and every biography to come of the former prime minister.

Maxine McKew quit her gig as the host of ABC's Lateline barely 12 months ago, and managed to defy history, and the mocking of Howard lackeys, to win the seat that Howard was supposedly going to own until his retirement.

The story of how McKew pulled off her amazing victory is already legendary in Labor circles, and is being studied intensively by Liberals, who still can't believe she actually did it.

A new book, The Battle For Bennelong by Margot Saville, explains how McKew and the Labor Party pulled off their history making, and history defining, victory :

...it was due largely to a clinical targeting of Bennelong's above-average number of non-English-speaking, foreign-born and predominantly Asian voters.

McKew and her minders did not want want the usual suspects among the legion of volunteers who offered their services. "Very early on her volunteers were carefully screened to remove all rude, aggressive Howard-hating types," Saville writes.

McKew's campaign, like Rudd's, was methodical and positive.

Labor headquarters sent into action a "crack team" of "Chinese- and Korean-speaking twentysomethings" to liaise with the Asian communities. Saville told the Herald the operatives were groomed through the Young Labor movement and worked the party's Electrac data system incessantly to target Asian voters with emails and visits.

McKew's campaign office secured a phone number that ended in 888 because many Chinese believe 8 to be a lucky number.

Thousands of how-to-vote guides in Chinese and Korean were printed and delivered, as were testimonials from prominent members of the Asian community.

Rudd's own affinity with China, evidenced by his command of Mandarin, was pivotal, as was Howard's earlier attitude to Pauline Hanson's One Nation and his controversial 1988 comments on Asian immigration.

On the last day of the campaign, (Chinese language newspaper) Sing Tao's front page carried the story of the race-hate pamphlet scandal in the seat of Lindsay. Next to it was a story mentioning Howard's 1988 comments.

Go Here For The Full Story

Howard knew the Lindsay pamphlet scandal was going to finish him off in Bennelong. That's why he got on the phone himself to try and stop the Tony Abbott approved spin that the pamphlet was nothing more than a "Chaser-style prank" from reaching the media.

But Howard failed, and the absurd claim that the virulently inflammatory pamphlet was but a joke guaranteed the scandal's place as the lead news story for the last two days before the election, and a front page position on nearly every newspaper in the country.

A fitting end indeed for a prime minister who knowingly, and enthusiastically, stirred up race hate throughout his political career, and did it with a knowing smile.

How John Howard's Ego Suicide-Bombed The Liberal Party Into Oblivion

The longer the Liberals stay out of federal power, the more they are going to hate and vilify John Winston Howard. The man with an ego so enormous, that even when he knew that refusing to handover the leadership would destroy the party he claimed to have loved so dearly, he still refused to go, for little more reason than that he would not be granted the exit of his choosing. That is, the departure from the leadership that would look the best in the history books.

Howard knew for almost a year that he would go out a loser, and his government would lose the election, but he wasn't going to let his party shove him aside, despite his continual lies that he would stay on only as long as the Liberals wanted him to be there. When they didn't want him to be there, he demanded they force him out, so he could tell historians "they shoved me out, I never quit".

Being a loser for John Howard was far better than being remembered as a coward :

...what will outrage those who believed the government might have survived under a Peter Costello prime ministership is that Howard also knew that he was running on empty, but decided to stay on anyway, wilfully consigning the Coalition to what could be a decade in the political wilderness.

And the reason Howard chose this road to the abyss? In a verdict that will frame the 2007 defeat as the ultimate act of indulgence on Howard's part, Downer says it was because those Costello supporters agitating for change in late 2006 were "f...ing rude" to the former prime minister.

According to Downer, it was Howard's intention to hand over to Costello in 2006, until he felt pressured to do so by the treasurer's supporters. "If after the 2004 election, all of the Costello team would have just said, 'Howard's done well, he's won the 2004 election, we'll just wait till he hands over', then John Howard would have handed over at the end of last year."

Howard would have handed over if it had not been for quite a sustained campaign to force him to hand over. "John Howard is not uncivilised and if you ever want anything from John Howard apply the old (saying) that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. It's funny when people are f...ing rude to you, they are then surprised when you don't like them."

"The prime minister's view was actually that he didn't think it would work, that we were in deep trouble, but we could do even worse if we changed. And it was also his view that, and I think it's important to understand this, he would be remembered, that had he voluntarily stood down, he would be remembered as a coward, who ran away from a contest in his seat and who ran away from a national contest when he was behind in votes, that people would remember that he ran away."

Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees, eh Mr Howard?

So fuck the Liberals, right? After all, what did they ever do for you?

Earlier in the year, Howard reportedly told his cabinet members "You're nothing without me." Which was true enough, considering his favourability ratings were so high, particularly when compared to Costello, who spent most of 2007 being about as popular as open running pus sores.

Like George W. Bush is now to Republican Party, so John Howard will eventually become to the Liberal Party. The leader who screwed up, who refused to listen to the changing tide of opinion amongst the people that he ruled, whose ego was so enormous that he was willing to trash his own party and damn them to perhaps a decade in opposition, and whose name will be rarely mentioned, soon enough, amongst the more betrayed feeling Liberals without these introductory words : "That fucking bastard..."

"We Can Change The Way The Public Thinks..."

Rupert Murdoch Admits He Does Tell His Newspapers Who To Back And What To Print

By Darryl Mason


Okay, prepare yourselves, and try not to be too shocked by this revelation :

Rupert Murdoch has admitted to a parliamentary inquiry (in the UK) that he has "editorial control" over which party The Sun and News of the World back in a general election and what line the papers take on Europe.

Mr Murdoch's comments were revealed in the minutes from evidence he gave behind closed doors on 17 September in New York, during the committee's inquiry into media ownership.

But the News Corporation chairman said he took a different approach with The Times and The Sunday Times. While he often asked what those papers were doing, he never instructed them or interfered, he said.

The minute stated: "For The Sun and News of the World he explained that he is a 'traditional proprietor'. He exercises editorial control on major issues – like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe

Which raises the obvious question, how many of the 70% of all Australian newspapers that Rupert Murdoch controls does he instruct to back or attack chosen politicians, political parties or political causes?

Is the Sydney Daily Telegraph as editorially independent of Murdoch's influence as the London Sunday Times?

Or can The Australian newspaper claim that honor?

Was the Herald Sun free to back Howard over Rudd in the elections? Or was the Herald Sun's pro-Howard line more for reasons of 'balance'?

Perhaps the UK parliamentary enquiry revelations explain why Murdoch blogger Andrew Bolt (whose blog features on the main news.com.au portal, as well as the Herald Sun and Courier Mail websites, reaching hundreds of thousands of Australian online readers) was so enthusiastically pumping the fact that, just before the election, the Sydney Daily Telegraph backed Rudd, while the Herald Sun did not, and why Bolt was earlier so vehemently denying that Murdoch's papers went hard after Howard when he refused to step down.

Murdoch's revelation of purposeful editorial control should not be a revelation to readers of The Orstrahyun blog.

As regular readers would remember, Murdoch clearly admitted, back in June during his climate change awakening, that not only did he instruct his newspapers to push a certain reality that he favoured, but he could also muster the entire forces of his internet, newspaper, cable and TV empire to push his belief systems onto the world and change not only what they believed, but how they behaved.

Here's Rupert Murdoch explaining how this would be done on the issue of 'waking up' his readers to the reality of climate change :

"We need to reach (our audience) in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content-- make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun. We want to inspire people to change their behavior.

"The challenge is to revolutionize the message.

"We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way.

"Now... there are limits to how far we can push this issue in our content."

"...we can change the way the public thinks about these issues..."

Within weeks of Rupert explaining how effectively his vast media empire can wage a psychological war on its viewers and readers to influence their beliefs and behaviour, most of his dozens of Australian city and suburban newspapers became champions of fighting climate change, launching special liftouts, dedicated websites and awareness campaigns over the next few months, under such Al Gore mantras as 'Saving Planet Earth'.


UPDATE : On September 10, 2001, John Howard had a long, private dinner with Rupert Murdoch in Washington, DC. Howard was suffering some of the worst poll numbers of his career, and the Liberal Party was scoring its worst poll ratings since the mid-1970s. But Tampa was heating up the front pages back home, and 9/11 was about to shock the nation.

Murdoch allowed himself to be interviewed by the media when he exited the restaurant with Howard, in scenes that were repeated in early 2007, in New York City, with then Labor prime ministerial hopeful Kevin Rudd.

From an ABC Radio report on the Howard-Murdoch 2001 dinner :

For two hours the two men sat alone in the upmarket Oxidental Grill deep in conversation. At 10:00pm local time they emerged and Mr Murdoch was asked by waiting journalists who'd win the next election.

RUPERT MURDOCH: No, we never discussed it.

REPORTER: Do you think Mr Howard deserves a third term in Office, Mr Murdoch?

RUPERT MURDOCH: Mm?

REPORTER: Do you think the Prime Minister deserves a third term in Office?

RUPERT MURDOCH: It doesn't matter what I think. You ask my editors.

REPORTER: Mr Murdoch, how do you think Kim Beazley would go as Prime Minister?

RUPERT MURDOCH: It would be very interesting.

REPORTER: Were they productive discussions with Mr Murdoch?

JOHN HOWARD: Well, we had a pleasant dinner.

REPORTER: Did you talk politics?

JOHN HOWARD: We talked everything.

MARK WILLACY: There's little doubt about that, given Rupert Murdoch's interest in media policy and the extraordinary influence of his Australian print empire. His response when asked if John Howard deserved a third term is well worth another listen:

RUPERT MURDOCH: It doesn't matter what I think. You ask my editors.

Rupert Murdoch was far more forthcoming on Kevin Rudd when he was asked by a journalist in early 2001 whether or not he thought the contender would make a good prime minister. The reply then was, "Oh, I'm sure..." Big smile.


A note we received yesterday, from a person who claimed to be a former staffer in John Howard's office, said that it was common gossip within many government departments that when John Howard refused to hand over the leadership to Peter Costello at the end of 2006, Rupert Murdoch was less than happy. And that editors of at least two Murdoch Australian city papers, likewise, were less than happy.

The self-claimed former Howard staffer said that when Rupert Murdoch publicly appeared with Kevin Rudd in New York City in April, 2007, laughing and grinning after a long meeting at the News Corp. headquarters, and then dinner together, a climate of doom descended amongst many in the prime minister's department. The belief was that Murdoch had given Kevin Rudd the Big Tick, particularly after the "Oh, I'm sure" quote was aired, which meant Howard was probably finished.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph soon became very obvious champions of Kevin Rudd, and Howard suffered a sustained stream of extremely negative Daily Telegraph front pages, featuring large photos showing Howard looking old, stressed and confused.

But then again, one city newspaper doesn't win an election. Does it?


"We want to inspire people to change their behavior....The challenge is to revolutionize the message...We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting. Tell the story in a new way...we can change the way the public thinks..."

Liberals Suddenly Very Interested In The Government Being Held To Account

The Rudd Government, That Is

Libs Helen Coonan and Christopher Pyne now believe that an Australian government should keep its promises, should be held to account for its actions and should face heat and intense scrutiny when it acts dishonestly. Nothing like being kicked out of power to make politicians champions of integrity, honesty and substance :

Helen Coonan : "It's very important...that the Rudd led Labor party is made to fulfil their promises to the electorate and be kept accountable."

Christopher Pyne : "....the one thing that counts, which is holding Kevin Rudd accountable for his promises and his frontbench accountable for their incompetencies."

Helen Coonan : "I think it is very important to hold Kevin Rudd accountable..." "Can I just say one thing about holding Kevin Rudd accountable...eventually somebody's going to have to actually implement what they say and we will be holding Labor accountable, I assure you."

Great. But what about holding the Liberal Party accountable for the past 11.5 years? Christopher Pyne explains how that works :

"...we have to forget about the past."

Well, you can have your dreams.

Former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is all for forgetting the past as well :

"...what’s the point of going back over the last 12 months, we can't relive that. It's all over. We just, I think for the Liberal Party, it won't be doing itself much of a favour by a constant retrospective."

It's no wonder Downer, and the rest of the survivors, want to forget about the past year, and the past11.5 years, of Liberal/National government.

Tim Dunlop runs through some of the numerous ways the Howard government shafted the Australian people and ducked and weaved their way through some of the most outrageous and shocking events, boondoggles, double standards and outright fabrications of recent decades :

I can’t remember the number of times we were told that Mr Howard doesn’t lie and that even if he does, so what, all politicians lie; that “core promises” was a perfectly legitimate way of dealing with election commitments; that any government or prime ministerial fudging in regard to “children overboard” was a figment of the “Howard haters” vile imagination; that there were absolutely no problems with the government’s handling of AWB scandal; that the Haneef matter was dealt with strictly according to the law with no eye to political advantage; that David Hicks deserved everything he got and that the government were always perfectly upfront about their dealings with the Bush Administration on the issue; that we were told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the invasion of Iraq; that the subsequent change of position of why we were in Iraq and how long we were staying there was perfectly reasonable; that the former government did have a mandate for WorkChoices because they mentioned something about in passing on their website before the 2004 election; that the “fairness test” wasn’t a backflip contradicting their previous commitments to make no fundamental changes to the legislation; that the business union ads the previous government demanded were a completely honest assessment based on sound econometric research; that Mr Howard’s multi-billion dollar splurge on government advertising was justifiable down to the last cent and that the ads themselves never had any political intent...

Dunlop has more on all this here and makes this final, extremely valid point :

Thank you, Mr Howard. By running the most dishonest government in living memory you seem to have converted a generation of your own supporters to the cause of integrity in government and this is, apparently, going to be a key theme of the new Coalition Opposition...This is a good thing for the country, something some of us having been arguing for some time.

Indeed.

Whitewashing Howard's Iraq War Legacy

By Darryl Mason

In a long, glowing tribute to John Howard, 'the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia', Greg Sheridan, decides the debacle and horror of the Iraq War is hardly mentioning. Well, not beyond a weighty 42 words worth of whitewashing.

Regardless of how Sheridan tries to spin it, in two or three decades, Howard's involvement in the Iraq War will be one of the three key reasons why his name will be mentioned in the history books, along with his, reportedly, platonic man-love affair with President George W. Bush.

Historians care little for "the economy" in the long term, they always write at length about the controversies and dramas, the wars and conflicts and the big historical events that divide and unite the nations that prime ministers and presidents lead.

Howard's larger national and international legacy is not "the economy". It is the Iraq War. Without Howard's shameless appeals to President Bush, from early 2002, if not earlier, that Australia was right behind the Iraq War, Bush would have had one less key member of the Coalition of the Willing, which was thin enough to begin with, outside of the involvement of the UK and Spain.

The Iraq War has occupied five years of Howard's 11.5 year reign, almost half of the total years Howard served as prime minister, if you consider the Iraq War began for Australian when it sent in special forces troops in late 2002.

The lead-up to the Iraq War saw the largest gatherings of people opposing a government policy in the nation's history. And it some of the most foul and odious columns ever written by Australian opinionists, in a disturbingly co-ordinated effort to try and dampen down the overwhelming opposition to the coming invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Many so-called journalists, including Sheridan, followed Howard's psy-op line that if you opposed the war you were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein. Tell that to the many thousands of Australian war veterans who marched and spoke out in early 2003 against the brutal violence and mass civilian slaughters they knew, from experience, were coming to the people of Iraq.

Before the Iraq War began, Australian, British and American intelligence agents broke protocol, and cover, to warn Howard directly against backing the extremely dodgy 'Saddam Has Nukes And Lots Of WMDs' NeoCon fakery, most of which was built around the claims of the infamous 'Curveball', who turned out to be nothing more than a desperate Iraqi who was being paid to tell NeoCons what they wanted to hear, so they could use it to try and sell their war to the people.

None of it worked to convince even a thin minority of Australians that the Iraq War was necessary. Regardless of the mass opposition from the people, Howard sent his nation to war, knowing full well the NeoCon-packaged WMD intelligence was pure crap.

So here's how Greg Sheridan, supposedly one of our most respected and highly regarded foreign affairs journalist, sums up Howard and Iraq :

Howard made the right call on the information available, and it took incredible guts to do it. There were certainly no lies involved - every responsible authority was convinced Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - and Howard will be vindicated by history.

This is whitewashing at its best, and most shameless.

The lies from Howard about the Iraq War were many, and Sheridan knows this.

Here's but one of the many bold and outrageous lies from Howard on Iraq : He told us he had not committed Australian forces to war in Iraq, literally 48 hours before the 'Shock And Awe' bombings of Baghdad began. But Howard knew, as Greg Sheridan knew, that Australian special forces had been working away in Iraq's west for months, and many Australian troops had been told in October and September, 2002, that they were going to Iraq to fight a war, and that they were prepare for war, and that they were prepare their families for that fact.

That Sheridan would even think he could float such an absurd paragraph in a major newspaper and that people would believe him is just bizarre.

Perhaps Sheridan is so mortified by what has happened to the people of Iraq, in a war that he relentlessly promoted through the last half of 2002, and right through 2003, that he really wants to believe his own twaddle. Maybe he has to. Perhaps it is easier then to sleep soundly at night, and not think of the millions of innocent people, mostly young people, killed or maimed or driven from their homes.

And don't think for a moment that Sheridan was some of sort of apologist, or PR flack for Howard. God, no. Sheridan himself admits he was "savagely critical" of Howard during the former prime minister's 30 year long political career. How many times was Sheridan "savagely critical"?

I'll let Sheridan reveal the vast extent of his savage criticism for himself :

"Twice in Howard's career, I have been savagely critical of him."

Twice!

Sheridan was relentless in holding Howard to account for his foreign policy decisions and disasters, and you would expect nothing less from 'the most influential foreign affairs commentator in Australia'.

How did Howard stand all that pressure and scrutiny from Greg Sheridan?

It must have been tough.


Janet Albrechtsen : I Don't Even Mention The Word "Iraq" In My Howard Whitewash

September 2007 : Greg Sheridan's Shameless Anti-Democracy, Anti-Free Speech Propaganda

February 2007 : Sheridan Helps Dick Cheney Make His Case For War On Iran

Sheridan Predicts "Outside Chance" Victory For Liberals In 2010, With Tony Abbott In Charge

John Howard's Humiliation Now Complete

Maxine McKew Takes Bennelong


Knocking on 8000 doors, and sitting down for hundreds of cups of tea and actually listening to what the locals have to say, and doing it all without a crush of media and security in tow, really does pay off.

Maxine McKew has won the seat of Bennelong from John Howard. Her victory is the final grave marker in John Howard's political career.

For the first time in three decades, Bennelong has a new local member of Parliament, and for the first time in history, that MP is from the Labor Party.

Consider this : Bennelong was, until recently, one of the most conservative and safest Liberal seats in the entire country.

John Howard was comprehensively beaten by a woman, a Labor Party true believer and a former ABC Television news journalist. The triple whammy.

Could Howard's humiliation be any more complete?

Only if Kevin Rudd had dispatched removalist vans to Kirribilli House at 6am on Sunday morning.

McKew's win is a repudiation of everything Howard claimed his Australia was all about.

If Howard had even dared to raise immigration-related issues during the election campaign, in search of a new Tampa, as he desperately campaigned to hold onto immigrant-rich Bennelong, his defeat would only have been more massive.

The media consensus is that the disgusting Lindsay Leaflet Scandal cost Howard dearly in Bennelong, where the immigrant-strong local population got all-too-real and rare glimpse at the racist dark heart of the Liberal right wing conservatives Howard had proudly allowed to blossom under his decade long rule.

The international media headlines on Howard's total defeat have been brutal :

Howard's Final Humiliation - Out Of Parliament And Out Of Government

Eyes Show Devastation Of Shocking Defeat



Two excellent accounts of John Howard's last day as prime minister :

'That's How It Goes' - Howard Campaigns For Every Last Vote


And the day after, with a bit of the night before as well :

24 Hours In The Life Of An Ex-Prime Minister


The rage and bitterness on show in these stories from shocked Liberal supporters towards non-Howard voters is disturbing. What happened to graciousness in defeat?

So much for all that alleged violence of the Howard Haters.

Speaking of which, a whip around the online newspaper sites reveal that just about everyone connected with the 'conservative' side of politics this morning has already become one of the Howard Haters they used to so very recently revile.

Much of this New Howard Hatred comes from the dawning horror that the Liberals are in ruins, for the next few months at least, and that Howard purposely shafted Costello and destroyed any chance he had of becoming prime minister, or even an enthusiastic leader of the Liberal Party.

No wonder Costello decided to pass on the leadership. Who'd want to hang around this grim and explosive pack of bitterly sore losers for another six or ten years?

Howard "No Doubt Well Pleased At His Work" Of Destroying Liberal Party

The New Blame Game : Why The Liberals Were Massacred At Election

By Darryl Mason

The John Howard Liberals have been effectively destroyed at the 2007 Australian federal election. It's a stunning victory, and Kevin Rudd will go down in history as the Labor leader who brilliantly defeated the supposedly unbeatable John Howard.

The Liberals, and conservative media, will never admit it, but Labor won because they ran a smoother, far more effective campaign and had a better dream to sell, and they sold it with skill, focus and patience.

The Liberal Party is already tearing itself apart. Alexander Downer's interview on Sunday morning on Insiders was absolutely hopeless. Expect him to join the conga line of "fuck this, I'm outta here!" Liberals moving on to very greener pastures in the corporate world. Costello will be first, Downer most likely second, followed by Tony Abbott.

David Flint, salty monarchist and paranoid conservative, has kicked off the "We Wuz Robbed!" campaign, and previews the long months to come of rampant conspiracy theorising amongst Liberals as he decides to blame :

....internal Liberal fighting and media bias for the poor Coalition showing and giving Kevin Rudd "a dream run".

Ah yes, media bias.

Not the media bias from Andrew Bolt, or Tim Blair, or Miranda Devine or Piers Akerman or most of the editorialists at The Australian newspaper. They were all for shredding Rudd and Labor without pause, so that was fair enough in Flint's view.

He's talking about the 'media bias' of the dreaded ABC, Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age. Curse those Evil Lefties!

But Flint has more theories than just 'media bias'. Dark theories. Of 'own goals' inside the Liberal Party. There was a plot, dammit! And Flint knows all about it. But he won't elaborate. Naturally :

He also blamed "a member of cabinet" who he would not name who he suspected of having leaked information detrimental to the Liberal cause, first that the Prime Minister had lost the confidence of Cabinet later APEC, and then that Malcolm Turnbull had tried to get him to ratify Kyoto. The Liberal party will be "shaken" for some time," he said.

This sort of stuff will be very entertaining to watch in the next few weeks.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has some theories on why they were slaughtered at the election as well :

(He) has put the Coalition's federal election defeat down bad timing for himself and his Liberal colleagues.

"I think people just think it's time," the outgoing foreign minister told a function in his South Australian electorate of Mayo, which he retained.

"People think we've been in for about 11-½ years, they are comfortable with Australia, they think we've done a good thing but it's time for a change."

Mark Vaile echoes Downer, as he offers his explanation for why the Howard government was nuked at the election :

“Our commitment to the war against terrorism, in some quarters, affected our vote,” he said.

“There seemed to be a sense of just wanting to change for change's sake in Australia.”

Ahh, yes. The Timing. It was all about The Change.

That's what Liberals will keep telling themselves and each other. We weren't voted out because people were sick of us, or hated what we were doing to the country, or that they liked Rudd's ideas and policies more. Hell no. We lost because...you know, the timing.

Or the It's Timing.

Mark Vaile succinctly summed up one of the reasons why the Howard government were tossed out : they think Australian voters are morons who don't vote for policies, but because they simply wanted different politicians in power. They really do think you're that stupid.

John Howard will cop plenty of blame for the utterly humiliating defeat that will shatter the Liberal Party.

In fact, it's already started. Liberals turned on Howard before he even conceded defeat :

Liberal Senator and former minister Ian Macdonald said Mr Howard should have stepped aside a year ago.

"I say that it's tragic that someone who's done as much for Australia as Howard ends up like this. I'm very sad for Howard - I wish he had gone a year ago."

Liberal Senator Gary Humphries said Mr Howard's decision may have hindered the party's chances.

"It may well be that the prime minister's leadership didn't help the Coalition at the end of the day. It may well have been better to have had a different leader going into these last six to nine months of the campaign."

This will get very ugly indeed. But that's what happens to Australian conservatives when they get flogged. Lots of infighting, hating, and even spitting :

Glumly watching television as the results unfolded, Liberal supporters at the main party event in central Sydney, where Prime Minister John Howard was soon to concede defeat, were devastated.

Some said it felt like a funeral.

Vitriol spilled out when Labor's Maxine McKew, who could unseat Mr Howard in his Sydney electorate of Bennelong, appeared on TV.

"I hate that woman," one young man spat.

With all that hatred and spitting, this young lad could have a new career as a conservative columnist.


More senior Liberals are now going after Howard for not stepping aside a year ago and giving Costello a proper chance at beating Kevin Rudd :

Senator (Ian) Macdonald says he respects Mr Howard but he should have gone a year ago.

"It's a tragic way for such an able, committed man and someone who's been so good for Australia to leave," he said.

"I think it would have been different had Peter Costello been leading the party for 12 months."

He says the cabinet ministers should have that ensured Mr Howard went earlier.

"I'm very confident the Coalition would have won had Peter Costello been leading the party," he said.

Murdoch journo, and decade long Peter Costello pimp-in-chief and cheerleader, Glenn Milne, absolutely guts John Howard in this scathing piece of vitriol and conspiracy theorising :

You have to hand it to John Howard. The man who immortalised himself as "Lazarus with a triple bypass" has reached from just beyond the point of political extinction to achieve his ultimate personal aim; denying Peter Costello his chance to lead the Liberal Party.

Howard has likely incinerated two generations of Liberal leadership on the bonfire of his own vanity.

The price of Howard's fatal misjudgment of his own worth is Costello's exit and the consignment of the Liberal Party to at least two and perhaps three terms in Opposition.

Howard is no doubt well pleased with his work. As the Liberal Party tastes the bitter dregs of defeat and digests the effective departure of Costello we now realise why the outgoing prime minister constantly lectured his party room against hubris. Because all along it was the dark whisper that fluttered at the core of his own being.

And on Saturday night he finally succumbed to that spirit by playing out the last act in a succession of acts of wilful pride that eventually took his party down with him. Having ignored the repeated urgings of his colleagues to go both in his own interests and those of his party, Howard's hubris saw him finally dare the voters to dispatch him. They obliged, ultimately convinced it was the only way to get rid of him.

We'll have to come back to Milne's toxic spew at Howard. It's too good not to dissect further.


John Howard knows who to blame. Himself. Well, kind of :

"I accept full responsibility for the Liberal Party campaign and I therefore accept full responsibility for the Coalition's defeat in this election campaign...."

Good to see John Howard taking "full responsibility" for one of his awful decisions (to stay on when he should have handed over to Treasurer Peter Costello).

Update : I've realised hours later that Howard only took "full responsibility" for the campaign, not for his decision to stay on past his use-by date

Of course, Howard's decision to finally take "full responsibility" for something came at the very same moment he was announcing he was going to be leaving Australian politics for good.

They will praise him for now. Maybe a day or two. But the first of many books featuring senior Liberal ministers and power brokers absolutely tearing Howard to pieces for staying too long and destroying the Liberal Party are about to head to the printers. Some will be on the shelves for Christmas.