"How did it come to pass that an opposition's measure of a president's foreign policy was all or nothing, success or "failure"? The answer is that the political absolutism now normal in Washington arrived at the moment--Nov. 7, 2000--that our politics subordinated even a war against terror to seizing the office of the presidency." - Daniel Henninger - WSJ 11/18/05
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"the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." - George Orwell
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Monday, February 12, 2007

Barack Obama to Australia's Howard: Put up or shut up!

Opinion from a former ambassador, that honed his creative writing skills as a staff writer for TIME, Edward M. Gomez revels in Barack Obama's retort to Australian Prime Minister John Howard's recent comment:

"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats"
In exultation, Gomez writes at the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Cutting through what the whole world now knows has been a thick cloud of lies, misinformation and disingenuousness surrounding the war in Iraq whipped up by its most partisan, ideological backers, just-announced U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama isn't letting Australian Prime Minister John Howard easily off the hook."

"The conservative Aussie pol, whose approval ratings are plummeting as he faces re-election, is seen to have played a role second only to that of British PM Tony Blair as a leading cheerleader and fawning "lapdog" of George W. Bush, as some of his own countrymen have described him."

The quotation under the image of Barack Obama, fawns over the Senator's remarks as:

(Obama),"didn't let Howard get away with his debate-silencing remarks."

Barack Obama replied with his own "disingenuous, partisan, and ideological debate-silencing remarks (not defined as such when lobbed from the Left)":

"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced....I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr. Howard has deployed 1400, so if he is...to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq....Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
A new twist on the "you didn't serve, so you don't have a say," maneuver. If it had been up to Senator Obama, Australia would have 1,400 more military people there than the U.S. Obama thinks it's flattering of Howard; I think it's flattering to George Bush that Mr. Obama would use the very same troops he feels should not be there as a volley back at the comment of Howard.

Odd that.

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