Posted by Sigismund on March 14, 2008, at 16:37:58
In reply to Re: No » Sigismund, posted by fayeroe on March 12, 2008, at 15:24:57
Only $40,000 a pop.
Howard at Harvard
From today's paper....
IN THE icy wastes of their remote alpine redoubt, the hard-core Howardistas keep the flame alive. The latest conceit of the ragged band around the camp fire is that the last election was actually a great victory. We are all conservatives now, they cry. Their fancy is that Howard's prime ministership so changed Australia's political, economic and social landscape that conservatism will be the natural order of things forever, whatever tricks the vile Labor socialists might get up to during their temporary grip on power.
The Hermit of Wollstonecraft (or The <uncivil word deleted>, as Alan Ramsey calls him; I am not sure which I like better) was waffling along much the same lines to students at Harvard on Tuesday.
His government had ended the "pointless debate about our identity" and fostered "a rather positive view about Australian history and Australian achievement," he boasted, as self-basting as ever.
"I think our sense of national pride is stronger now than it was in the 1990s, less ambiguous, and that's tremendously important."
There was no "pointless debate about our identity". There was a rational debate about monarchy and republicanism which Howard contrived to derail with his rigged referendum question back in 1999, much to the fury of Malcolm Turnbull, if you remember.
It is true, though, that there is a stronger sense of national pride. I, for one, am proud that fairness and decency have returned to our national affairs after an absence of 11 years.
poster:Sigismund
thread:815250
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20080312/msgs/817935.html