from Malkin
user level: Rookie posted 1:12p, 11/24/07this user’s public profilesend private message to useredit this replyobject to this reply
Australian elections have become increasingly presidential, and Labor cast this one as a two-man race: Kevin vs John, youth vs age, the future vs the past. A vote for Rudd was a vote for someone new. But not too different. Cartoonists drew Rudd as a mini-Howard. A satirical video on YouTube cast the Chinese-speaking Labor leader as Chairman Mao, with subtitles reading: Rudd unnerve decrepit Howard with clever strategy of similar difference. Rather than attacking Howards strengths, Rudd appropriated them. I am not a socialist, Rudd insisted. I am an economic conservative. On issue after issue, from federal intervention in dysfunctional Aboriginal communities, to national security, to the expansion of coal and uranium mining, Rudd adopted the governments line.
The new P.M. is likely to go Howards way on foreign policy, too. What he described as fundamental differences with Howard his vows to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and pull troops from Iraq are largely symbolic.
None of the countries that signed the Kyoto Treaty have succeeded in doing anything to meet the promised requirements. Billions have been wasted, sensible ways of solving the energy crisis have been put off limits, and they have accomplished nothing. The US reduced emissions more than Canada or Europe. I suppose you can call that symbolic. But it's a terrible waste of energies that should have been directed toward solving real problems.