This Must Be The Week For Ex-PMs Airing Grievances

Dear John Howard... You Can STFU Too

If Julia Gillard offering up her analysis about her time in government wasn't painful enough yesterday, today we have the wretched John Howard offering up some spuds of stupidity and onions of opinions.

The first spud of stupidity is that he says he's 'embarrassed' about the WMDs not being there in Iraq. This is interesting because a lot of people died and got maimed for that mistake. John Howard insists the intelligence said in forceful language that the WMDs were there. I seem to recall at the time, Collin Powell was telling us that if we looked at the photographs closely enough, we could almost imagine there being WMDs on the ground.

Andrew Wilkie who once had to become a whistleblower on this very subject came forth and slammed John Howard saying he should be ashamed. This was peculiar. The man says he's embarrassed - presumably that's shameful enough. I mean, I don't rely get the political nuance difference between being embarrassed and being ashamed, that would some how "un-fuck the goat". I guess John Howard wants us to know that he didn't lie - because he's still wanting to be 'Honest John'. Well, thanks John Howard you're still racist prick in my books. Which brings me to this other bit:

Yes, just as I predicted there would be throng coming forth to slam multiculturalism in the wake of the arrests over the ISOR terrorists the other day, John Howard chose this moment to say he "wasn't a fan of the doctrine of multiculturalism".  John Howard then goes on to say he doesn't believe in culture, he believes in races and people coming here to assimilate.

He also weighed back into multiculturalism. Howard in the 1980s was a trenchant public critic of multiculturalism and argued for a reduction in Asian immigration. He later recanted the position on reducing Asian immigration. 

“I’m not an overwhelming fan of the doctrine of multiculturalism, I believe in multi-racialism, I believe in bringing people from different races, different religions to this country but once you’re here, you’ve got to become part of the mainstream of the community,” he said. “I think over the years we’ve dropped off a bit too much.” 

On Sunday night he argued now was not the time to debate the level of immigration from the Middle East - but he remained critical of the term multiculturalism. 

“I think it’s a confusing term, what does it mean? It means different things to different people” he said. Howard contended we needed to “try harder” to integrate communities of different ethnicity into Australian society.

Which is to say, he's a racist and an unreconstructed colonialist bully - which we already knew but there he is again flying the flag for all the racist dingbat boys and girls to go riot in Cronulla. Way to go John, now wrap yourself in a flag and choke.

He even had something negative to say about Julia Gillard's big shining international moment, 'The Misgyny Speech'.

“I thought that was nonsense … the idea that Tony Abbott is anti-women is ridiculous,” he said. Howard said that type of posturing discouraged women from entering politics when more are needed in the parliament, though he said it should not be through quotas. He said Gillard’s speech “did not resonate” with women he knew. 

Note, "women" he "knew". I rest my case.
The fact that he wanted comment on it in that way spoke volumes about why he had to go and be consigned to history's dust bin. Except I thought this was self-evident in 1987, so I don't know why it took another 20 years for Australia to be finally done with him.

While he was in a mood to diss people and things left, right, and centre, he decided to tell us that Peter Costello didn't have the ticker to take over as Prime Minister. Well, thanks for that non-history lesson John Howard, we surmised that when Peter Costello pulled up stumps in a petulant frenzy and quit politics after that 2007 election.

No, really. With a cavalcade of wretched excuses for mistakes and insults for both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, it was an interview we really didn't need. if they really want a say in all this, they should've stayed and fought on. It's the worst kind of commentary in a democracy.

And Then There's Bob Carr

Bob Carr wasn't happy that Julia Gillard said he was lazy.

Bob Carr has suggested Julia Gillard's claim that he was a "lazy" foreign minister for Labor could be payback for his decision to switch his support to her leadership rival Kevin Rudd before the 2013 federal election. 

And Mr Carr has denied admitting that he struggled to keep up with the demands of modern politics because he was more settled into his retirement than he realised.

What do you do? What are we to make of this? Bob Carr isn't exactly somebody who acquitted themselves very well in the last ALP Government. If anything, he's one of those people who should be copping it sweet and slinking off to enjoy his bountiful retirement cheques courtesy of the taxpayer. All of these people, John Howard, Bob Carr, Julia Gillard, need to shut the fuck up and get out of our faces.

I can't think of another time in the last 30years where politics equalled such misery-making. If you go back 40, I guess you get The Dismissal. This, is just The Dismal.