hingehead wrote:As a disinterested outsider it seems personal rather than ideological - the libs are factional too, aren't they?.
Surprisingly so, given the routing of moderate,
liberal Libs years ago. Remember "the wets"? The divisions seem to be based on those pro & anti Howard these days. I suspect his party is as sick of him as most of the rest of us are!
Quote:I hate the idea of people looking back on the Howard years and saying what a great prime minister he was. Surely he will be seen as visionless, antiethical, manipulative, opportunistic weasel?.
I doubt history will be very kind to Howard. Though there will be extreme conservatives who'll look back to JH's years as some sort of
golden age, where bosses were bosses & the workers well & truly knew their place!
Quote:Did you see his touching 5 second grab on the anti suntanning campaigner's death? Nice. Of course he can't muster up that emotion for Iraqi civillians or boatloads of refugees.
No, I missed it, but I know what you mean. Seen him do this sort of routine before, many times.Though it isn't
real emotion, ya know. That's saved purely for the Oz cricket team! :wink: The rest is just headline-catching stuff, a chance to parade his "values'.
Well here we are in mid-September & still no idea of when exactly the election will be. This "phoney campaign" has dragged on for so long people seem to be thoroughly sick & tired of it all & seem completely switched off. Where are the policy debates? What with APEC & this latest JH/PC leadership fiasco, even the media commentators seem to have given up on discussing the issues. Weird. Like being in some sort of limbo as JH decides what best suits
him. Stuff the country, it's all about what's right for him.
(Oh btw, he's just announced today he
won't be retiring during the next term afterall, he's going to see the whole 3 years out! - presumably he'll be on the back bench for the last bit. I think they might have to forcibly drag him out of the parliament, kicking & screaming!)
: 
But I thought Kevin07 was the "safe, younger version of John Howard"! How many of these JH clones are we going to see around Canberra? Once was enough, surely?:
