Friday, January 9, 2009

Gonna have trouble getting rid of the old person smell

It seems that despite losing an election well over a year ago, John Howard continues to embarrass the country.

The word came through that as Howard was staying at the official White House guest house - Blair House in Washington DC as he is getting a Presidential Medal of Freedom from soon to be ex-Pres G.W Bush (code for shiny token to say thank you for being such a suck up), the Obama family have been forced to stay in a hotel before his inauguration.

So it's not enough of an embarrassment that Howard is getting this award, he wants to further ensure the ignominy of the occasion is reinforced by setting himself up as more important than the next President of the US.

Now were it Rudd over there at the moment, I would be thinking the guy is a dill for presuming such self importance. Yes the PM of Australia is important, but let's be honest, in a week's time should he have a few too many after dinner drinks, Obama could invade Australia should the urge take him. And given it's in America, in fact in Washington DC, and also in fact is the week before he becomes President, you would think that might be one occasion where you would allow the guy to take some amount of precedence, even though Rudd is an actual leader, and Obama is "only" a presumptive leader.

But for an EX-PM to conduct himself in such a way is beyond belief (or it would be if it were any other ex-PM).

But every cloud has a silver lining. With luck this will be the final (and possibly only) impression most Americans have of Howard. It'll be nice that he will be remembered as being such a petty pompous git.

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