A Conga Line of Hypocrites

I wish I'd thought of that line, A Conga Line of Hypocrites, to describe the Australian Labor Party's attack on the world's greatest Prime Minister, John Howard, but I didn't.

The Liberal Party has been accused of being in lock-step with the USA or more specifically, the Republican Party, since 9/11. Apparently, being a strong ally of a country that is prepared to stand up to dictators, terrorists and madmen rather than fawn all over them, want to talk to them to 'understand their point of view' and make huge financial concessions is something to be abhorred.

Howard's recent statements (described as an 'attack' by most of our ever supportive mainstream media) disagreeing with Democratic Presidential hopeful Barak Obama's lunatic view to bring the troops home by March '08 is entirely consistent with what he has been saying over the last couple of years about the calamitous consequences of an early troop withdrawal. He has been criticised for suggesting that Al Qaeda was hoping for a Democratic victory in '08 but that's really more a case of the truth hurting than overstepping the line of diplomatic decorum. Al Qaeda and its allies certainly seemed happy to share the credit for the Democratic success in the '06 midterm elections.

The world's greatest Treasurer, Peter Costello, has returned fire by highlighting the hypocrisy of the ALP's attack on the Prime Minister while extending an invitation to Venezuelan dictator Chavez to make a solidarity visit to Australia. Chavez, of course, has been one of the USA's greatest detractors, accusing it of plotting to assassinate him but also finding the time to go to the UN (avoiding assassination along the way in the land of his enemy) and give an infantile speech in which he called George Bush 'the Devil'.

These ALP members are the same ones that voted in Mark Latham as leader for their last disastrous election campaign. In the year prior to his rise to opposition leadership, Latham made the following remarks in Parliament:

"Bush himself is the most incompetent and dangerous President in living memory. It is a bit rich for him to be preaching democratic values when he himself failed to win a democratic majority in the 2000 presidential election. His war with Iraq is more about revenging his father's mistakes. It is about the things that happened in Iraq and Kuwait in the early 1990s and it is about securing domestic political advantage...
...

"Mr Howard and his Government are just yes-men to the United States. There they are, a conga line of suckholes on the conservative side of Australian politics. The backbench sucks up to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister sucks up to George W. That is how it works for the little tories, and they have the hide to call themselves Australians. In my book they are not Australians at all, just little tory suckholes. That is all they have left on their rotten little side of politics ...The truth is the Prime Minister has forgotten how to stand up for the national interest. He has forgotten how to be a good Australian, not some yes-man to a flaky and dangerous American President"

So now we have an opposition party that has a history of supporting extreme anti-US positions, attacks Howard for being 'pro-Bush' while at the same time praising anybody that is in the 'anti-Bush' camp. These people have no ideas and no shame. A conga line of hypocrites, indeed. I really do wish I'd thought of it first.