Obama's bitchslap

[randy_byers]

Before I forget, I wanted to take a moment to admire Barack Obama's slapdown of the Australian PM, John Howard. In case you somehow missed it, Howard said in an interview that he thought Al Qaeda would be thrilled to see Obama or any other cut-and-run Democrat win the next US presidential election. Obama replied by saying that if Howard was so eager for the fight in Iraq, he might think about sending 20,000 more Australian troops to supplement the token 1400 he's committed so far. (Just how many Australian casualties have there been in Iraq, anyway?)

I haven't been able to tell how much hay the opposition leader in Australia, Kevin Rudd, has made of this exchange (I don't read the the Australian news every day), but he certainly seems to be playing it smart. He has argued that Howard is mismanaging the relationship with the US by tying himself too closely to Bush and the Republican party. Rudd has portrayed himself as someone who would be able to work well with any American administration. My impression is that Howard has been made to look like an idiot within Australia as well as to the outside world. And while Obama didn't deliver his rebuke very smoothly in the actual press conference, the substance of it was right on the mark. Well played!

Comments

[numbat.livejournal.com]

Or to put it more accurately, 'lot of people who I spent time with hated the US because of the war'. From Howard's point of view that doesn't really mean much since these are people who haven't voted for him in the past or were likely to in the future. Where it would be a concern for Howard is if had caused some of those who had voted for the government in the past to withdraw their support. I see no evidence of it doing so. Basicly to suggest this incident had any effect on Howard's popularity is to enter the realm of fantasy where Obana's reply can be described as a 'bitchslap'. (I am very tired of the bizarre and deliberately dishonest practise that occurs whenever A replies to B. Inevitably the media will automaticly describe the response as have 'slammed' etc A seemingly simply because B managed a response without regard to whether what B had to say was at all telling. This is ludicrus hyperbole invented to sell newspapers and really doesn't belong in the conversation of adults.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Sorry that I have offended you.