After four terms in office, he’s out; ousted by an electorate suffering from Politician Ubiquity Fatigue. Labor’s Kevin Rudd is the new prime minister.
Weep not. This is much the same thing as when Clement Attlee beat Winston Churchill at the end of World War II. John Howard was there when the civilized world needed Australia, and nothing will change that. Thanks to his blunt talk and forceful responses, the last Australian that many a Holy Warrior ever saw looked a lot like this.
Comment by Dan Collins on 11/24 @ 10:15 am #
Thanks, John! You’re welcome here Up-Over anytime you like!
Comment by MarkD on 11/24 @ 10:58 am #
Again wishes for peace triumph over reality. Thank you Prime Minister Howard. History will recognize you and the brave nation you lead.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 11/24 @ 11:37 am #
Its sad too, he was a terrific guy and he really could make great speeches. I hope Australia doesn’t suffer for this choice, they’ve got a more imminent terrorist threat than we do in the US.
Comment by Papa Ooh Mao Mao on 11/24 @ 12:58 pm #
The last time Australia elected a Labor PM, Howard followed him for 12 straight years. Be patient. Every once in a while, folks gotta be reminded that these people really were as stupid as we remembered them. After all, it only took one term of Carter to get us eight years of Reagan…
Comment by Brave Conservative Stalwart from Lawnguyland on 11/24 @ 2:59 pm #
I hope those Aussies enjoy their impending dhimmitude. Burkas will be mandatory on Bondi Beach before their summer even begins.
And anyone who doesn’t think librulislamofascists hacked into the voting machines down in Oz is nothing but a useful idiot.
Comment by McGehee on 11/24 @ 4:43 pm #
Lawnguylander, no need to overreact. The lack of a “gratitude dividend” for democratically elected leaders who see their people through times of crisis, is nothing more than historical fact — but even though the coiner of the phrase “Iron Curtain” was one of the first to suffer the ingratitude of his constituents, that Iron Curtain did eventually fall.
And so will the extremist jihad. Worldwide communism never happened, and neither will the global caliphate.
Comment by Mark on 11/24 @ 6:09 pm #
You may be brave, No.5, but you’re not exactly knowledgable. For one thing, Australian elections do not use voting machines.
Comment by Wil on 11/24 @ 7:45 pm #
And anyone who doesn’t think librulislamofascists hacked into the voting machines down in Oz is nothing but a useful idiot.
And you therefore are marked down as someone who can barely spell Australia, let alone find it on a map, let alone have a clue how Australian elections work.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/24 @ 8:01 pm #
Australia is gonna sign the Kyoto Protocol and all the Global Warmings will get more better!! Australia is where Saudi Arabia gets its camels from so that’s neat too. But Bill Cousins will still be a chardonnay-sipping toolie. And once stalwart Oz is wavering on the “question” of Tom Cruise’s gayness. And, Kyoto!
I stole that last part from J.D.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/24 @ 8:03 pm #
oh. here’s the toolie link… it’s just so sad.
Comment by Bazza on 11/24 @ 9:18 pm #
To: Papa Ooh Mao Mao
Just as a bit of a heads-up, the Labor party was in power for nearly 14 years, prior to the 11 that the Liberals have just clocked up. Their policies laid the foundation for the stability we’ve seen in the last decade. Last time John Howard was in government was as the Treasurer in teh late 70’s, when he left Australia with a crippling deficit.
But hey, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story! (a bit like the clown who thinks we use electronic voting machines)
Comment by Wadard on 11/25 @ 2:36 am #
Weep not. This is much the same thing as when Clement Attlee beat Winston Churchill at the end of World War II. John Howard was there when the civilized world needed Australia, and nothing will change that.
Apart from the small difference that Winston Churchill successfully repelled an invasion by Nazi Germany in a World War where 60 million died… er… yes… I ’spose.
You need to sack whoever writes your stuff.
Comment by File Jockey on 11/25 @ 4:21 am #
“[Australia has] got a more imminent terrorist threat than we do in the US.”
“Burkas will be mandatory on Bondi Beach before their summer even begins.”
“And anyone who doesn’t think librulislamofascists hacked into the voting machines down in Oz is nothing but a useful idiot.”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Morons.
Comment by Steve of OZ on 11/25 @ 5:06 am #
Do you actually know anything about Australia? Could you even point it out on a map? I believe Australia’s made the right choice in electing a Labor government. I like America, but Howard was trying to implement the worst aspects of American social policy in Australia. We woke up to him just in time. Under Howard the gap between rich and poor has widened considerably. Our universal health system was fantastic, but Howard has created a two tiered system. Under his watch we now, for the first time in our history, have a number of $100,000+ degrees (yet his generation enjoyed free tertiary education). , no help crap that you Americans seem all too happy to accept. I will not miss Howard. Kevin Rudd will make an excellent Prime Minister; he is a formidable intellect and a compassionate man also.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector on 11/25 @ 7:45 am #
Apart from the small difference that Winston Churchill successfully repelled an invasion by Nazi Germany in a World War where 60 million died… er… yes… I ’spose.
We civilizationalists decided not to let the bad guys get quite so far along, this time.
I don’t presume to know much about Australia’s domestic politics, and so I consciously refrain from commenting on them. I only know that Australia stepped up to beat back The Jihad, while transnational proggs were running for the tall grass, or fist-pumping the Poor And Oppressed and their bomb belts.
Comment by File Jockey on 11/25 @ 12:24 pm #
“We civilizationalists…”
Jeebus, you cons are up yourselves.
Comment by McGehee on 11/25 @ 12:27 pm #
What — you can call yourselves “progressives,” thus implying anyone who disagrees with you is a regressive, but we can’t give ourselves a happy, cuddly name like “civilizationists” or “puppies”…?
Comment by McGehee on 11/25 @ 12:30 pm #
I guess a blog post and comment thread expressing disappointment in a proggish election result is just too much rain on the ol’ transnational parade.
Comment by File Jockey on 11/25 @ 4:12 pm #
You wanna call yourself “puppies”, McGeHee, go right ahead.
To try portraying comments like those I quoted above (#13) as expressing mere “disappointment”, is slippery dishonesty. It was vile gutter level and utterly ignorant drivel. Australia is in no danger whatsoever of being handed over to the Islamofascists, and you know damn well it isn’t
And for you to call the Australian election result “proggish”, just shows how little you know about that political scene. The new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is a moderate Christian conservative.
Try informing yourself about the subject at hand before you shoot your stupid mouth off.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/25 @ 4:56 pm #
and, Kylie!
Comment by JD on 11/25 @ 5:17 pm #
Wow - Apparently file jockey missed the fact that the idiot in #5 was followed by a slap down in #6 and various people pointing out the obvious mistakes.
McGehee - If our intellectual betters will allow us to express our opinions (I beg permission File Jockey) I would put forth the idea that the world was a better place with Howard in office. He may have been beaten by a moderate Christian conservative, but the laundry list of progg talking points against Howard reads straight from the progg hymnal. Losing men like Howard is a shame - the world needs more with steel in their spine, rather than less.
Comment by Umm Yasmin on 11/25 @ 7:59 pm #
Is it sinful to feel this much glee. Naa naa ni naaa naaa.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/25 @ 8:01 pm #
Glee? Cause Rudd is the prime minister of Australia? Isn’t that setting the glee bar kinda low?
Comment by Rudd on 11/25 @ 9:36 pm #
I eat boogers.
Comment by JM on 11/25 @ 10:37 pm #
Umm, I think certain dropkicks on this blog would be interested in the perspective of a long time conservative commentator from Australia - the most senior Australian commentator in fact - sort of like William F. Buckley if you like (if Buckley had stuck to commentary rather than activism). It’s at the Sydney Morning Herald.
But I’ll just quote a couple of the more moderate statements from it “this last election, … kills Howard off politically, along with the nastiest, meanest, most miserable, self-absorbed Commonwealth government to blight Australia in living memory”
And also: “[people who] went through the ritual yesterday of “talking up” the selfish little man who never understood when it was the right time to get out”
And: “Howard saw the demise of every Liberal or Coalition government in every Australian capital … Such is the reality of Howard’s “greatness”
Get it? This is a conservative commentator who the day after is telling us precisely what a venal disaster Howard was.
Get over it guys, John Winston Howard is no Winston Churchill. His entire career has done to conservative australia what Pol Pot did to Cambodia.
Comment by JD on 11/25 @ 10:46 pm #
JM - He was still right in standing with President Bush and the coalition in fighting the War on Terror. Period. That makes him a good friend in my book.
Comment by hpennypacker on 11/25 @ 10:59 pm #
Yeah, JM, just like Marcos was good for the Phillipines, ’cause he didn’t cotton to commies and the South Africans were excused for apartheid were alright by us, because they hated pinkos, and the Shah was better than the elected leader of Iran and, well, it’s too bad Allende was killed, but he was a commie, and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are marvels of the “war on terror”, despite the massive torture of their own citizens….as long as Howard sent troops to Iraq, we don’t give a crap what he did to his people. Our President’s the one who said “you’re with us or you’re against us” and that’s as deep as Protein Wisdom plans on getting on ANY foreigners.
Comment by JD on 11/25 @ 11:10 pm #
Hennypecker - We will start looking to you for guidance around the time we start looking to Sally Struthers and Michael Moore for weight loss advice.
Comment by Quentin George on 11/25 @ 11:35 pm #
JM, you are either 1) A total idiot, or 2) Not Australian. Alan Ramsey isn’t a “long time conservative commentator”, he’s closely associated with the Australian Labor Party, and has been for years. He was speechwriter for Labor leader Bill Hayden until 1985, and heckled the Liberal Party (John Howard’s party) Prime Minister in 1971.
Understand? He was anti-Howard’s party before Howard had even stood for parliament.
Perhaps before you begin to opine on Australian politics, you should get a fucking clue.
Comment by JD on 11/25 @ 11:41 pm #
Quentin George - May I vote for both 1 and 2 ?
Comment by JD on 11/25 @ 11:46 pm #
I would be interested to learn how the actual Australians describe their political classifications. I would suspect that what is considered conservative here and what is conservative there are not quite the same.
Comment by Quentin George on 11/26 @ 12:12 am #
The Australian Liberal Party probably fits in the American context between the right of the Democrats and the left wing of the Republicans. The Australian Labor Party would be further to the left from that, but not that much these years. The National Party would be probably be analogous to the social-conservative portion of the Republican party.
Comment by JD on 11/26 @ 12:16 am #
QG - Thank you. And I still vote for JM being both. Such vitriol from someone who was so damn wrong on the simple facts.
Folks, wasn’t HennyPecker one of the aliases that timmah/timmyb/timb used previously?
Comment by JD on 11/26 @ 12:18 am #
And to File Jockey, you may not consider yourself to be a progg, but in the future, should you wish to avoid sounding like a progg, it would be a good idea to stay away from the progg talking points du jour.
Comment by Habib on 11/26 @ 12:22 am #
We don’t have a conservative party per se in Australia, the Liberal/National coalition being the closest thing- a mild centrist/welfarist urban party linked with an agrarian socialist/social conservative pack of yokels.
No economic rationalist policy to be seen anywhere, with the commonwealth expanding exponentially under the Liberal party over the last 11 years, and tax revenues expanding to match, along with lots of social micromanagement and sleazy slings to percieved buyable voters in marginal seats.
THE ALP is much the same but with a left wing as loopy as anything to be found on the Democratic Underground, and a nasty thuggish influence from the trade union movement, who pretty much bankrolled the campaign and who’ll want to collect a dividend now.
Current ALP leader claims to be a Christian middle-of-the-road type, but previous form while chief of staff to a state labor government showed him to be a nasty piece of work, very keen on power and control but not much else- also has the air of someone who was constantly picked on at school (and deservedly so), and now’s time to get even.
His deputy is a former ambulance-chaser from the most venal personal injury pettifoggers in Australia with views that make Hugo Chavez seem like Dick Cheney, and a voice like an industrial blender full of cats being mic’s through Irom Maiden’s PA system.
An interesting three years coming up.
Comment by JD on 11/26 @ 12:36 am #
pettifogger is such a good word - I may have to borrow that one.
I knew as soon as File Jockey stated that Rudd was a moderate Christian conservative, that he was anything but.
Comment by Andrew on 11/26 @ 10:16 am #
“Yeah, JM, just like Marcos was good for the Phillipines, ’cause he didn’t cotton to commies and the South Africans were excused for apartheid were alright by us, because they hated pinkos, and the Shah was better than the elected leader of Iran and, well, it’s too bad Allende was killed, but he was a commie, and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are marvels of the “war on terrorâ€Â, despite the massive torture of their own citizens….as long as Howard sent troops to Iraq, we don’t give a crap what he did to his people. Our President’s the one who said “you’re with us or you’re against us†and that’s as deep as Protein Wisdom plans on getting on ANY foreigners.”
Yeah, just like we loved Saddam, cause he’s not a jihadist. He’s SECULAR, so who cares.
Right?
Am I the only one whose hair stood on end when FJ described Rudd as “a formidable intellect and a compassionate man”?
Comment by Rudd on 11/26 @ 10:38 am #
I eat booger
Comment by Darryl Mason on 11/26 @ 10:58 pm #
This was a great day for world democracy. No poll related violence, no terror attacks or threats, no reports of widespread intimdatory behaviour at polling booths. When it was over, the old leader and the new leader treated each other with respect and praised the greatest country in the world.
The only real dark act of the election campaign was an attempt by campaigners in John Howard’s party to stir up anti-Islamic sentiment with fake leaflets linking Kevin Rudd’s party to supporting terrorism.
The public was genuinely outraged, and no the Muslim community did not riot or attack anyone in revenge for the smear campaign. The ‘Leaflet Scandal’ was probably responsible for John Howard losing his seat in Parliament.
We had a long, tough and only occasionally nasty election campaign, a calm well organized voting day and then a respectable and orderly transition of government.
Like I said, a great day for democracy, and one that should be respected by all who wish democracy for others. You can learn a lot from how we do things down under.
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Comment by eugene tano on 1/31 @ 12:42 am #
so far i see no difference between howard and rudd .. howard put people in prison for life for crimes they did not commit and rudd should know this unless his IQ- is only 66 also. he wont even consider reviewimg their cases because he does not want the world to know the black aus. closet of secrets one day the real killers of port author will be found and a scape goat kid will regain his freedom. so much for the fair go,,, its long gone,,,