Australian PM John Howard Loses Election

AP:

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.

Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush's staunchest allies.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[samuraijack]

G'day Mate!! Don't let the door hit you on the way out! Good on ya, Mate! Jack Out.

[Dejack]

Glad Howard lost and glad it was "humiliating" too!

[bar1ed]

this is not news ----- who in their right mind would hang with a president that is a lame duck with a lame mind ??????

[steffi]

Does anybody know if Rudd is expected to sign the Kyoto Protocol _before_ meeting with Bush? That is surely something that the Americans are going to persuade him not to sign.

[Mikesacola]

The Noalition Strikes Back!

[truthyguy]

The Coalition was far from overwhelming to begin with, most of them in Iraq because of the threats of the Bush administration to cut off aid or something similar. Even still being under such threats, most have decided it is a fiasco lead by an incompetent administration. Australia is just the most recent.

Now, if we could just get our own Congress to do something, like impeach the asshole dullard and send him back to cutting brush full time. Something that requires no thought and where he cannot get people killed or maimed.

[Jonahson]

Australia is a Sovereign country it should not be in Iraq in the first place. It has it's own intelligence to work out the sources of informations on Iraq's WMD and being a member of the United Nation it went against UN's charter not to accept the report that the inspectors found no sign of WMD in Iraq. Instead it and a handfull of Asian countries deceided to join US in the invasion of a hapless Iraq and now its occupation. Thankful the Australians are correcting this shameful mistake.

[mamacat]

Its nice to see that a little sanity is spreading to Australia. Now, if only we could have an early election here.
Its interesting that the violence died down in Basra as soon as the Brits pulled out, not before. Same thing happened in Vietnam. The civil war couldn't end until the U.S. stopped trying to prop up the losing side. Now we buy cheap clothes from the winners. Is that what our 58,000 KIA in Vietnam were for, the right to buy clothes from the cheapest labor market in the world? Kinda puts the lie to all the right wing rants about fighting for democracy. Fighting for the right to be wrong is not the same thing as fighting for democracy. Duh.
And we should never forget all the civilians dying because of our right wing insanity. Two million displaced and hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, in a country that was not a threat to us, only qualifies as spreading democracy in the warped minds of pseudo-patriots.

[aqualung]

Crude is nearly $100 a barrel. Gas is inching toward $4.00 a gallon. The dollar is weakening against most other currencies. The political and economic capital of the U.S. is dwindling because of these factors, and because we have squandered the moral high ground as the land of individual liberty and democracy with Iraq, Abu Graib, extreme rendition, waterboarding, Alberto Gonzales and our support for despots in Russia and Pakistan. Yes, George Bush has presided over the transformation of America into a third world country. Congratulations Georgie!

[USMC1980]

Hee Hee. Looks like a little taste of things to come for the Repug Pukes in this country. Giuliani is going to have his ass handed to him next year....if he even makes it out of the primaries.

[Rubiconski]

OMFG!! Amazon.com has just re-classified "The Israel Lobby" book by Harvard and Chicago U profs as a "conspiracy theory".

Have a look at a few of the most popular items in "Conspiracy Theories" @ shamazon

The True Story of the Bilderberg Group

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans--Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild

Behold a Pale Horse

Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War

All the President's Men

Talk about a freakin conspiracy...wow!!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/10552/

[ResidentChimp]

Despite the morons on HuffPo who love to hate President Bush, we are gaining adherents, not losing them. I guess the Huffers never heard of France and Germany.

[BeerHolder]

Why is it that every other leader who backed Bush gets canned and Bush survives?? Why are Americans so stupid?

You can blame Bush and Congress and the Senate but who the hell voted them in in the first place???? Who the hell keeps them in office??? Who keeps turning a blind eye every time one of our elected leaders commits a crime??? Who refuses to hold their collective feet to the fire???

AMERICANS DO!!!

[zenhead]

I'd guess the Poles, Aussies, and perhaps the New Zealanders will be the next to announce departure plans from Iraq. Anyone with an ounce of brains would see the lull in fighting, and the "success" of the surge as various and sundry Iraqi groups say: o.k., now, Here's your "surge" victory, King George. Now, take your American troops and piss up a rope but get the hell out of here.
Will Bush take the hint?
If he fails to take the hint, I can almost guarantee a resurgence of violence. There is quite a bit of data now available that there are various mechanisms at work, both in the Shi'i and Sunni and Kurdish groups to just take a breather. They all know they're going to fight it out amongst themselves, and they have the decency to allow a "victory" for our Monarch.
It remains to be seen whether he can take the hint, declare "Victory," and go home.
I would contend that he and Cheney won't -- will NOT -- take the hint. The true motive for this debacle ... American exclusive access to the second largest reserves of oil in the world ... are still going to be dominant in their minds. THEY obviously are the only ones who can decide if Victory has been achieved.
After all: Isn't that what Bush has said must occur?
Victory?
I'd give him, at most, till March to take advantage of the victory which has been offered him. If he fails to take it, then the various sides are going to start wailing at one another. They know, as do the Republicans in Congress, that the "surge" forces MUST begin coming home about then, or, be extended.
By then, who knows what mayhem may have descended upon Pakistan? And, how much of an escalation of violence there is in Afghanistan. The former is beyond our control. The latter would just mean moving more Americans from Iraq into Afghanistan.
Losing in Poland and Australia just cuts Bush off from two more "allies."

[SupremeIdiot]

As with any other environmental legislation enacted, right-wingers give a doom-and-gloom scenario. Lost jobs. Economic hardships. Dogs and cats living together.

Not once in the history of this country has environmental legislation led to economic problems. Where jobs are lost in old industries, new ones are created in new industries. New economies take over for the old fading ones.

I know that chicken littles like stevelagain tried to scare people away from fossil fuels and to keep whale oil lamps.