Damien Miller's weblog

Could this be the moment where John Howard jumped the shark? He has just attacked the US Democratic party and presidential candidate Obama as being the party/candidate that terrorists "pray" for. Apart from being a bizarre and hypocritical attack on another nations domestic politics (he strongly criticised the previous opposition leader for an attack on George Bush, but notably not the entire Republican party), it seems to be completely out of touch with both Australian and US opinion on the war. I'm sure that his motivation was just to shift debate from domestic matters where he is taking a thumping, but this seems to have backfired spectacularly - the opposition has used it masterfully to demonstrate Howard is once again an ideologue, has endangered the long-term AU/US relationship and to portray him as subservient to Bush. More amusing is that the level of press coverage that the story has received in the US, which may actually help Obama's candidacy. Nyah ha!

posted at: 09:43 | path: /stupidity | permanent link