So as I posted the other day, John Howard’s government has completely collapsed over in Australia, thoroughly swept out in an election that gave Labor and its current leader Kevin Rudd a massive victory. The two-party preference vote breakdown of 53 to 47 percent makes it seem closer than it is; when you look at it in terms of seats won, Labor’s edge is insurmountable and will grow. As has been noted endlessly by Australian commentators but might not be as well known elsewhere, it’s a rejection of the Howard government marked by near unique circumstances — the Liberal Party (which, to clear up this confusion once again, does not mean they are ‘liberals’ in the current sense; they are much closer to the Tories in the UK and the GOP in the US) now holds no higher office in the entire country than Brisbane’s mayor — in American terms, imagine if after the next election somehow the highest GOP official outside Congress was, say, the mayor of Dallas — while Howard himself has been narrowly ousted in his own home seat — a loss suffered by no other standing Australian leader since 1929. From being a 33-year veteran of Australia’s parliament, leader of the country for the past eleven of them and high-profile Bush ally in almost everything, Howard in a day has become nothing more than a private citizen. That’s politics, indeed.
My general impression of Howard, as an American with many Australian friends, nearly all of whom frankly loathe the man, is understandably biased, insofar as I’ve paid what little attention I have to the intricacies of Australian politics over the years (for instance, the WorkChoices legislation often mentioned as a key part in the Liberal collapse was utterly new to me until about a week ago). Still, at the very least he always seemed like little more than the type of irascible crab that irritates me just by existing, keen to gain and keep power by means of multiple forms of denigration of collective ‘others’ while simultaneously appealing to an ill-concealed bigoted streak in Australian society further complicated by a self-righteous religious fundamentalism — something all too easily replicated over here, of course. The various hosannas I’ve read about his abilities with the economy and, notably, almost nothing else that isn’t standard ‘servant of the country/strong leader/etc.’ boilerplate, make it seem like money was the only thing that his supporters actually cared about — forgive me if I find that a bit, shall we say, limiting.
Then there was, indeed, the Bush thing, or rather his enthusiastic support of Bush’s actions after 9/11, most notably participating in Iraq. It’s this type of thing which has led any number of right-wing bloggers (Malkin as ever being a classic example) who had been paying even less attention to Australia than I to post various hail-and-farewell posts, simply because of that alone. It was the kind of stupidly reflexive line of thinking that produced all those ‘Let’s thank the UK!’ posts and graphics and the like back in 2003 because of Tony Blair’s support of the Iraq invasions, knee-jerk reactions that had no sense of depth regarding the UK political scene in the slightest. Similarly here, where the multiple reasons why Howard and company got canned are all reduced down to assuming some sort of displaced BDS was the sole or core factor — and how like many insular American commentators to read everything through this country’s lens alone, and poorly at that. (To my amusement, I just realized that Glenn Greenwald said the same thing at the start of his piece on the matter.) The further sense of self-pity arising from them all is too much to take seriously — one gets a sense that they’re all preparing for next November, when they’ll have to comfort each other, at the rate GOP prospects are looking in general.
Balloon Juice, unsurprisingly, has some tart thoughts on the matter and on those posting all these maudlin and reductionist tributes:
[Are they] that upset about Howard losing simply because of his occasional rhetorical support of Bush? It certainly is not because of Australia’s (and again, not to demean their help) contribution to the force make-up. Is this what the Bush dead-enders are left with- clinging to the rhetoric of a foreign leader? I realize, I think the Republican party and right-wing are such losers and so wrong on many issues I left the party and joined a party I don’t feel wholly comfortable with, but are they really THIS pathetic that all they have left are Bush, Cheney, and Australia’s Howard to worship, and now just Bush and Cheney? Is that really it?
Pretty much.






November 27, 2007 at 3:45 am
How many troops does Australia have in Iraq? 1000?
November 27, 2007 at 3:49 am
More, actually — according to the official ADF site on Operation Catalyst, 1575 personnel are currently deployed.