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.

News That's Fit To Punt - 14/Dec/2012

How Low Can You Go, Bro(ugh)?

We all want to know this, now that the Federal Court has thrown out James Ashby's case. What's interesting about the case is not only did judge Steven Rares throw out the case, he awarded costs against Ashby. Which is to say, the judge thinks Ashby has not just been a public nuisance but a malicious muck-raker unto Peter Slipper and now must make amends to the man.

This has led to ALP front benchers accusing the Coalition of being part of a conspiracy, and Julia Gillard has called for Mal Brough to front up to a press conference in Canberra. It's all a little too late for Peter Slipper himself, as Anna Burke will stay Speaker of the House. Mal Brough will stay the candidate for the LNP trying to unseat Peter Slipper, and the Coalition has been pretending that they had nothing to do with Ashby's case. the problem of course is that the first person to fail the Cui Bono test is Tony Abbott and the second person to fail is everybody else in the Federal Coalition. 

In my books, you don't call this sort of thing a 'conspiracy'. It's called gaming the system, and it's exactly why the judge threw out the case - he did not wish the court to be made into the Coalition's play thing. I'm sure there will be retaliation from the Coalition once they get into power; and it has to be said, they will deny that it is revenge when they exact it upon the judge.

We'll all have to hold our noses so long we'll go blue and die.

Weasel Words

Julia Gillard has said Abbott has to stop using weasel words:

As Mr Abbott today denied there was a Coalition conspiracy, Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott had to stop using ''weasel'' words over the matter and disendorse the Liberal National Party candidacy of Mal Brough - who the Federal Court found worked with James Ashby to harm Mr Slipper.

Which is funny because the Conservatives delight in weasel words. It's their credo that the language they speak is not English but Weasel Words. Pointing this out doesn't even constitute an insult. it's like telling a leopard won't change his spots - of course not, not only is it impossible, he's proud of them. I just thought I'd mention that.

Bob Carr's Lucky Break

This week, Julian Assange has been making noises he will run for the Senate in earnest. This is interesting because I've also noticed that the person who has been the least helpful to Asange's cause might be the foreign minster of Australia himself, Bob Carr. Yes, he who used to be the Premier of NSW and jumped before he got found out for running a corrupt ship of fools. There he was languishing in retirement, doing power walks around the footpaths of Iron Cove, and voila, his lifelong dream of being a foreign Minster opens up because Mark Arbib had to fall on his sword.

I seem to recall Mark Arbib got named as a CIA informant in leaked documents - documents leaked via good old Wikileaks - and so he had to fall on that sword; Mark Arbib's senate seat never would have opened up had it not been for the good work Julian Assange did in exposing that RattusRattus. Bob Carr is a net beneficiary there of the chain of events.

Well, it occurred to me today that Bob Carr should be thanking Julian Assange for allowing his lifelong dream to come true, and that he should do a much better job of protecting Mr. Assange and bringing him home.

I know he won't see it that way - he's the master of non sequitur responses and would claim some arcane reason why he's not - but it seems obvious as daylight if you bother to read the newspapers. Oh I forgot, nobody does that anymore.

Fixing The Mess

Julia Gets Her Way

And amazingly, Bob Carr is now a Senator replacing Mark Arbib, and Foreign Minister to boot. One marvels at how this deal got done, but it did.

Just hours before this morning's announcement, one minister, who like everybody else, was in the dark that Carr was back in the game, said: "She looks like she's lied and has no authority.
"This is not good for her; it's not good for us.
"I despair, I really do."
The truth is that, by Tuesday, the prospect of Carr coming to Canberra was over.
Gillard, stung by the criticism, rang Carr yesterday and put the offer to him again.
Carr accepted and, once more, Smith took one for the team.
Gillard ends the week as she began it - her leadership ascendant.

I guess it's a case of crash or crash through. You'd hate to be Stephen Smith, but them's the breaks.

The way I figure it, this doesn't really do much to add back credibility to the Federal ALP in as much as they had recruit a retired politician from the State ranks. Makes it look like the ALP in NSW really is short of talent. I probably shouldn't keep bagging Julia Gillard because this is a big victory on her part, but it says a lot that this is a big victory for her. Unfortunately I've made up my mind and i won't be voting for her; doubly unfortunate is the fact that Bob Carr isn't really in my good books so this leaves me cold; triply unfortunate is that I don't really care about her accomplishments in technical aspects of politics. She can be deft, so what?

All of this sort of explains why Kevin Rudd came out smiling from the caucus meeting in which he only got 31 votes. It's all a set up including Simon Crean smoking out the Rudd supporters to the brazen hypocrisy of Arbib claiming he's quitting politics for family to the yes-no-yes drafting of Bob Carr. how could one not laugh?

All it takes is for a couple of backbenchers on the Rudd side to call it quits and it's back to a hung parliament and they'd better damn well call an election - but  Julia Gillard would lose that too if polls are to be believed. I short, this is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. The Federal ALP government is as lame as any lame duck government has been.

Colour me unimpressed.