Saturday, November 24, 2007

Changing of the guard   [Mark Steyn]

John Howard was characteristically graceful in defeat

He said it was a privilege to have served as prime minister and he thanked the Australian people for that privilege.

"The Australian people are the greatest people on earth and this is the greatest country on earth.’’

Of all the doughty warriors of the Anglosphere, Howard, his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and their colleagues had the best rhetoric on the present war, and I often wished the Bush Administration had emulated their plain speaking.

Bush is now a rare survivor of the pre-9/11 western leaders' club. Of his allies and opponents on the Iraq war, the latter have gone - Schroder, Chretien, Chirac - but so have the former - Aznar, Blair, Howard.

11/24 08:00 AMShare