Thursday, July 12, 2007

John Howard sings his heart out

As readers of this blog know I have a lot of time for our PM John Howard. He is a modest man, self-effacing and a tough, highly intelligent politician. He towers above anyone in the Labor Party for intellectual capacity, lack of pretension and for sound judgement. But, on the basis of current opinion polls, he looks like being replaced as PM by Kevin Rudd and Australia will become a one-party state. This makes me sad but, amidst this sadness, I got a laugh out of this.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know you were a satirist

As readers of this blog know I have a lot of time for our PM John Howard. He is a modest man, self-effacing and a tough, highly intelligent politician. He towers above anyone in the Labor Party for intellectual capacity, lack of pretension and for sound judgement.

Anonymous said...

FuzzFlash sez...

"He towers above anyone in the Labor Party for intellectual capacity,.."

Yeah, H. He's another Barry Jones orright.

Suggest you avoid the front page of tomorrow's Telly. I mention this out of kindness, because it's bound to make you even sadder.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,
Life goes on, Yeah,
La-La-La-La
Life goes on.

(McCartney again)

Anonymous said...

If he was such a towering intellect, as you claim, he would have got out a year ago when he had the chance.

If he were so tough, he would not have so cravenly followed that idiot Bush into a disastrous war.

If he so lacked pretension, he would not have been such a mendacious pretender (a liar to the straight shooters among us).

Howard ran his luck into the ground. He was lucky to have a strong global economy and he exploited fear and prejuidice to retain his grip on power.

His time is up and I will not join you Harry in mourning his demise.

Anonymous said...

Honestly Harry

What has JW(WIII)H done to deserve this affection?

A shared world view simply doesn't explain the feelings you show for that man.(For mohamads sake just pop the question mate)

hc said...

One thing that does command my affection, Rabee, is the ability of JWH to enrage people such as yourself.

That's not a very honorable affection but it is real - I am trying to deal with it.

And you know (I know you know) the pretence and hypocrisy that riddles the left wing intellectual view of the world. Howard is so free of it that it is refreshing. He holds his hand in front of his face and sees 5 fingers not an intellectual abstraction.

As a conservative I don't want visionary politicians leading me by the nose. I'd prefer pragmatic decision-makers well endowed with a tough sense of realism. Howard does have a toughness in intellectual debate that makes him a reliable leader.

He is obviously a smarter person and a better politician than Barry Jones - Barry though would make a better university professor!

But yeah, I exaggerated some of the more positive attributes of JWH ever so slightly in this post. It was intended to be ever so slightly humorous as the clip should have mjade clear.

Anonymous said...

Howard has cultivated this image of himself as the pragmatic, no-nonsense realist and centrist suspicious of high-minded ideals.

In reality, he is an ideologue of the radical right, trying to shape the world into his desired image and papering this over with a base populism that appeals to people's worst instincts.

His problem is he has been found out and finds himself isolated on a rock out to the far right. And no amount of cheer-leading from those like yourself, Harry, who like Howard because he gets up the noses of a few trendy lefties, will change that.

Anonymous said...

onlt three people believe John Howard is highly intelligent. Our Arry, Our Janette and our David Barnett.

Talk to him Arry and you will find out he is not.
He is sevrely one dimensional

Anonymous said...

Its the economy though that will determine the election - the symbolic stuff (Tampa, Iraq) don't really matter here as they affect too few people (unlike the US wrt Iraq). In the latest flyer we got we our home loan, house prices were flying in Perth and Darwin, doing alright (10%) in Hobart and Brisbane, and not too bad (approximately 8%) in Melbourne. Only Sydney is flat. Combine this with full employment - am still backing Howard to win.

Carr was embarrassingly strongly vague on AM this morning about the car industry - and if I were an economist supporting Rudd, I'd be embarrassed about the supermarket line too.