*Ø* Bush's comment was a set-up


A few days ago, US President Bush outraged a great many Australians, probably a majority, by stepping over a conventional line, into Australian domestic politics (as posted here on Friday June 4). A lot of commentators made it seem like it was just a throw-away line. It was not.

Now veteran and highly respected Australian journalist Alan Ramsey tells the background story in an article One question makes it all worthwhile at the Sydney Morning Herald. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, was with Shrub in the Rose Garden for a media conference, and when the conference was about to close, Howard made sure that a Rupert Murdoch journalist (Steve Lewis from Murdoch's The Australian newspaper) put the clincher question to the Prez.

Read on for what really happened:

"The locals' two questions showed no interest in Bush's visitor. The first Australian question asked when the incarcerated [Australian citizens] David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, buried alive in Guantanamo Bay for 2 years without charge, would face trial. Bush mumbled a non-reply about 'the case proceeding'. The second Australian question incited Howard. As an American reporter tried to grab the last opportunity, Howard interjected: 'Mr Lewis, Steve Lewis, The Australian.'

"Lewis, taking his cue: 'President Bush, if I could ask a question?' Bush, scanning the media gaggle: 'Where are you?' Lewis: 'Just here. Thank you.' And then the Murdoch press gallery journalist from Canberra asked the question his Prime Minister had gone half round the world to get answered, out loud, for his election campaign ads.

"Lewis: 'Mr Howard and yourself reaffirmed the commitment to stay the course in Iraq. Are you aware the alternative prime minister in Australia, Mark Latham, has promised to withdraw Australian troops by Christmas if he wins the election? What signal would that send to the Iraqi people and the other members of the coalition of the willing?'

"Bush obliged, fully and freely, what his script writers had failed to deliver: 'I think that would be disastrous. It would be a disastrous decision for the leader of a great country like Australia to say, "We're pulling out". It would disspirit those people who love freedom in Iraq. It would say the Australian government doesn't see hope of a free and democratic society leading to a peaceful world. It would embolden the enemy, who believe they can shake our will. See, they want to kill innocent life, because they think the Western world, the free world, is weak. That when times get tough, we will shirk our duty to those who long for freedom, and we'll leave. And I, anyway - [to clamouring reporters] no, you can't [ask] any more. Thank you all for coming.'

"John Howard, beaming: 'Thank you.'

"And thank you, oh thank you, Steve Lewis."


Aussie cultural cringe Vs. Helping the USA get rid of Dubya

Lewis's question was a Dorothy Dixer, as we call them in Oz: a set-up question. Note the way he asks "What signal would that send to the Iraqi people and the other members of the coalition of the willing?" He served it to the Shrub on a plate.

Australians will be going to the polls soon, at a date yet to be set but quite likely before the US election. No wonder Howard was beaming. Like Bush, he lives in the socks drawer of Rupert ("I no longer call Australia Home") Moloch.

If Mark Latham's Labor Party wins power and pulls Australian troops out of Iraq, it will be a bigger slap in the face to Shrub than most Aussies realise, and at a very important time. It will definitely harm Shrub's campaign as American electors get further confirmation of disapproval of his policies from allies in the world.

Australians typically underrate their country as a world power, because we are smaller than Britain and the USA, our main cultural influences. We shouldn't. That cultural cringe should have died 40 years ago. We have the world's 12th largest economy out of 190 nations. In most fields of endeavour, be they cultural, scientific, political, sporting or whatever, we punch well above our weight in the international arena. We have more international clout that we credit ourselves with.

We should remember this, I feel, when we enter the polling booths in a few months time. Bush wants our votes real bad. This is why people as high in the US administration as Powell and Armitage have also been mouthing off about Latham's plan to exit Iraq. They've been as noisy as a chookhouse full of goannas. It will be a bigger blow to Shrub than when Spain vamoosed. We should shoot through like a Bondi tram, and help the dinkum Seppos get rid of Bush, an' I tell ya that fer nuthin.

Normally, I reckon ya wouldn't lay a bait for most Labor pollies, but I'll be votin for them this time. Even though Peter Garrett, who joined Labor yesty, now says that we should keep Pine Gap, the American spy station we host here. As he once sang,


Power and the Passion Lyrics
Artist: Midnight Oil

Sunburnt faces around, with skin so brown
Smiling zinc cream and crowds, Sundays the beach never a cloud
Breathing eucalypt, pushing panel vans
Stuff and munch junk food
Laughing at the truth, cos Gough was tough til he hit the rough
Uncle Sam and John were quite enough

Too much of sunshine too much of sky
It's enough to make you want to cry

Oh the power and the passion, oh the temper of the time
Oh the power and the passion
Sometimes you've got to take the hardest line

I see buildings, clothing the sky, in paradise
Sydney, nights are warm
Daytime telly, blue rinse dawn
Dad's so bad he lives in the pub, it's a underarms and football clubs
Flat chat, Pine Gap, in every home a Big Mac
And no one goes outback, that's that
You take what you get and get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees

Oh the power and the passion ...


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