A loss for civilisation (Mark Steyn alert)

The Australian ^ | December 03, 2007 | Mark Steyn

[Dundee]

ACCORDING to my Oz-watching pals in Britain and the US, John Howard is not a failure but a victim of his own success. He made Australia safe for the Labor Party: or, at any rate, safe enough that a sufficient number of bored electors were willing to take a flier on a house-trained Labor on the short leash of a quasi-Blairite leader.

...I regret Howard's end. True, I object in principle to Australia's gun laws, and I regard much of the Aussie economy as embarrassingly overregulated after a decade of supposedly conservative rule. But, as the former prime minister put it in one of his most famous soundbites, this is no time to be an 80 per cent ally.

I am a 100 per cent ally of Howard.

First, the prime minister grasped the particular challenge posed by Islam...

..."You can't find any equivalent in Italian or Greek or Lebanese or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad," said Howard...

..."raving on about jihad" fits in a way that President George W. Bush's religion-of-peace pabulum doesn't...

...I liked to call Alexander Downer my favorite foreign minister...

...I loved Downer for his gleeful mockery of transnationalism and its pointless committees stuffed with representatives of what he called "busted arse countries".

In more genteel mode, he put it like this: "Multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator."...

...Merry, feisty, blunt and fair, they were exactly what we need at this moment: happy warriors. I'm saddened Australians feel differently. But if it's too late to get the US constitution amended in time for them to run for president next November, the savvier candidates ought to snap 'em up as speech writers.

[goldstategop]

We're saddened at the loss of feisty warriors. The Aussies under Howard grasped exactly what's at stake in the times in which we live.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[NonValueAdded]

or the Swedish politician who said that Swedes should be "nice to Muslims while we are in the majority so that when they are in the majority they will be nice to us".

OMG

[Gay State Conservative]

Howard,Bush,Blair,Churchill and others get it/got it when it comes to I Slam.It’s obvious that many in the US and Europe still don’t get and it’s beginning to like like many Australians,including Rudd,don’t get it either.

[omega4412]

John Howard is a defeated political leader in the tradition of Winston Churchill and Lech Walesa. History will vindicate him.

[Gay State Conservative]

John Howard is a defeated political leader in the tradition of Winston Churchill and Lech Walesa. History will vindicate him.

Let's hope his vindication comes *before* sharia "law" is imposed in the West.

[stevem]

I don't know how Mark Steyn finds the time to do what he does. His columns are local and cosmopolitan at the same time. They are eminently readable and continuous.

They (with a capital "T") say Thomas Aquinas used to have a bevy of personal secretaries follow him wherever he went, jotting utterances as fast as they could. For some reason that is the way I picture Mark Steyn.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Where do I sign up to join Mark Steyn’s entourage?

[stevem]

Where do I sign up to join Mark Steyn’s entourage?

Wouldn't that be a treat?

[Jeff Chandler]

Colin Powell I never expected much from, but few hitherto clear-headed types have shrunk in office as remorselessly as Condi Rice.

Ain't it the truth?!