Pretty Politics and Foibles in Blue
Trust Australians to seek every opportunity to coin slang phrases. Women travelling from isolated Bass Strait islands for mammograms in Hobart were embarrased to discover that their chartered transport became known as "boob planes". The Tasmanian Opposition is calling for "more sensitive protocols", while the Health Deparment is apparently "reflecting on the women's concerns".
Meanwhile the Indonesian election campaign has taken a strange turn, with Megawatti urging undecided voters to "just vote for the prettiest [candidate]" - as a strategy to end "confusion" over how to vote, showing the true depths of their appreciation of "democracy". Then again, it's probably not far removed from the strategy that saw Schwartzenegger elected in California.
Not a great day for Australian police either: in WA off-duty police caused "embarrasment" after they abused a group of American university students over their "citizenship and the US position in Iraq"; in Hobart, several officers have been suspended after after cheating to gain entry to officer level within the force by apparently plagiarising academic work; while in Victoria, the appointment of Tony Fitzgerald to investigate apparent corruption is not meeting with the expected appreciation, as the narrowness of his brief is causing concerns that the Inquiry will avoid most issues that need airing.
It's not just the Thin Blue Line suffering slings and arrows either - the Defence Dept is again being lined up to cop the blame for allowing the Federal Government to "mislead the public over when the Australian military was aware of prisoner abuse in Iraq." If we are to believe Man of Steel, he has again been misinformed by his own Civil Servants - as he claimed with Tampa, WMD, and practically every issue of the last several years. As strongly suspected, Australians knew far more about the abuses in Iraq than was first reported. "I didn't know" is becoming a very threadbare excuse. The PM's job is to know these things: Howard would have us believe that his job only encompasses knowing what his minions advise: "it is simply not possible for someone in my position to talk to every single person" he insists.
While the unprecedented politicisation of the Military and Intelligence Agencies seems set to continue, as an Australian Army Major was lecturing the American Military Police on the "legality of interrogation procedures" at Abu Grahib last October, then our involvement is clear. The SMH has a pithy op-ed peice on Man of Steel's blame games, including a noteworthy quote from a New York Times writer commenting on "the tragic absurdity of a clueless President riding his bicycle in Texas while Americans in Iraq are going up in flames".
Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:16 am ::
