They oppose the war, so why don’t people love them?

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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am

John Kerry plunges:

Free Fall Guy comes in dead last in poll of top pols’ popularity.

Kim Beazley dives:

Voter satisfaction with Kim Beazley’s leadership has slumped to its lowest level for eight months …

These guys should try another line of work. Like, for example, work.

Posted by Tim B. on 11/28/2006 at 02:50 AM
    1. What ungrateful proles we are.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2006 11 28 at 03:20 AM • permalink

 

    1. I’m just not a fan of their deadpan humour. All those mixed up jokes and wrong name stuff is just so university. Let me know when they get some new material… Politicians you say? Well I’ll be!

      Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 11 28 at 03:29 AM • permalink

 

    1. Squeaky wheels clearly aren’t getting the votes. No “traction” on policy positions. Spinning in circles to the plebs. Putting the brakes on in the popularity stakes.

      Shoot, the vehicular entendres are just…killing me…

      Posted by CB on 2006 11 28 at 03:38 AM • permalink

 

    1. Oooh what a suprise, the SAS man who criticized the government has been in discussion with the labour party about joining for a few months.
      He has been pre selected for a seat here in WA.
      http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1799585.htm

      Apparently Kimbo knew nothing about it….
      Still its better than Wilkie joining the greens I suppose.

      Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 11 28 at 03:59 AM • permalink

 

    1. In John Kerrys defence, bieng a Kept-Man, is pretty much like a full time job.

      As for the poll, East-Coast-Snob, found to be disliked by the larger American public.

      Such wonders.

      Posted by Thomas on 2006 11 28 at 04:07 AM • permalink

 

    1. #4 The SAS man has actually signed up. There he was on the evening news bagging Howard like an old Labor pro. Up the workers!

      Army pension, parliamentary pension.
      How sweet it is!

      Posted by Bonmot on 2006 11 28 at 04:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. John Kerry plunges.
      Kim Beazley dives.
      Anybody tanked lately? Oh yes, Ted Bailleau down in Victoria.

      Posted by Bonmot on 2006 11 28 at 04:14 AM • permalink

 

    1. “Kevin Ruddock Rudd and Julia Gillard are being touted as the “dream team”. I am not making this up. The ABC this morning referred to them as such.

      Gillard with her severe commisar of the collective hairdo, minimum makeup, dressed by the KGB – well, as visually unacceptable to the punter as anybody else you could name. And the voice. Let’s not go there. Bill Leak in yesterday’s The Australian described her visage as like a ‘steak knife’.

      Now to Pixie Rudd. Does the word ‘bland’ about cover it?
      Kev the foreign affairs tyro, the economics novice, one of the great sayers-of-nothing in out time. Mummbler and mutterer extraordinaire… I know Howard is bland as cheddar cheese too, but he’s a policy powerhouse and has one giant advantage over Rudd.

      Rudd, because of the arcane machinations of the ALP machine, is forced to try to appeal to two differing and at times, competing electoral bases. The inner city leftoid trendoids and secondly, the blue collar ‘workers’ as the ACTU still amusingly refer to people who do things rather than just sit around and think things.

      These two constituencies tear Labor apart and Rudd or any other ALP leader has to grapple with it. As Beasley has shown by his constant dithering and fence-sitting, it represents an almost insoluble conundrum. Howard capitalises on this mightily and I would expect the PM, in his wettest of dreams, to crave the arrival of the Dream Team on Labor’s centre stage. Beasley has been great. The Dream Team will be better. Game On!”.
      (–Alan of Sydney over at Bolta)

      Posted by Bonmot on 2006 11 28 at 04:30 AM • permalink

 

    1. Bonmot, what Alan said is quite probably true, and the likely outcome of the next election, but in the meantime the honeymoon period for Ruddard will be a repeat of Latham in 2004.  I am not sure I can cope with eight months of that sort of bullshit again.

      Posted by entropy on 2006 11 28 at 04:51 AM • permalink

 

    1. And I suspect that the Rudd disadvantage of reconciling blue collar workers and the inner city trendiods is a reflection of the disadvantage Howard has of reconciling free marketers in his own party with the national party.

      Posted by entropy on 2006 11 28 at 04:54 AM • permalink

 

    1. If the ALP want another three years of opposition – and let’s face it, history shows they are averse to any policy or other kind of change – they clearly need to listen closely to the sheilvoyants: ie Chris Sheil, Alan Ramsey, Professor Quiggin, Traceee or anyone who contributes letters or articles to Fairfax newspapers.

      BTW: Beazley’s popularity seems to be roughly the same as his belt size in inches. If he is at all serious about being PM, he needs to get on down to KFC and upsize his chances.

      Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 11 28 at 05:22 AM • permalink

 

    1. Kerry needs a haircut, Bomber needs a policy or two and Gillard needs a partner

      Posted by surfmaster on 2006 11 28 at 05:36 AM • permalink

 

    1. The poll sample may be deficient in idiots, for the Kerry greatness to be so denied.

      But the moron community is now in charge, so perhaps they’ve raised their sights and switched to “it’s all about the people’’ extroverts.  Watch for New York Times endorsements.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2006 11 28 at 06:02 AM • permalink

 

    1. SAS boy missed out on my husbamd’s best ever job offer…$250,000. A good year’s work.

      Posted by mareeS on 2006 11 28 at 06:09 AM • permalink

 

    1. rats, that was supposed to be my “husband”

      Posted by mareeS on 2006 11 28 at 06:10 AM • permalink

 

    1. Oh, God. Rudd as a Latham rerun.

      Eight months of the Phattie Adams having an unbreakable liplock on his limp little dick.

      Saints preserve us!

      MarkL
      canberra

      Posted by MarkL on 2006 11 28 at 07:08 AM • permalink

 

    1. So true MarkL.  And with the added bonus of the Gillard to rouse the sisterhood.

      Should we call it Ruddard?  I did it accidently earlier, but it has a nice symmetry about it.  Like they are a pair of love stricken movie stars.

      Posted by entropy on 2006 11 28 at 07:50 AM • permalink

 

    1. These guys should try another line of work. Like, for example, work.

      Ha! If they tried it, their poll numbers with their co-workers would be in the cellar. They’re not fit to be anything but politicians.

      Posted by Retread on 2006 11 28 at 08:02 AM • permalink

 

    1. Julia Gillard, the Orange Roughie, has as much appeal as her namesake, a dead fish.  She and the Attack Hamster the dream team ?  The mind boggles.

      Posted by Ubique on 2006 11 28 at 08:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. Rudd is the SWAT Womble. Don’t forget it.

      Posted by CB on 2006 11 28 at 08:51 AM • permalink

 

    1. Kerry has a job. Didn’t you see the trailer?

      John Kerry IS…American Gigolo!

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 11 28 at 10:19 AM • permalink

 

    1. Every morning I get e-mail spam which says:

      Love like war, he who stays longest wins!

      I mean if the Viagra spammers have got it figured out, why can’t the libs?

      Posted by 68W40 on 2006 11 28 at 10:27 AM • permalink

 

    1. THEY OPPOSE THE WAR, SO WHY DON’T PEOPLE LOVE THEM?

      I’ve always thought that idiots are repugnant, myself.  But that’s just me.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 11 28 at 10:51 AM • permalink

 

    1. John Kerry, like other fauna repugnant to human sensibilities, is simply congenitally unpopular. Skunks, cockroaches, spiders: they all have the same problem.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 11:04 AM • permalink

 

    1. Paco, please refrain from defaming skunks, cockroaches and spiders by putting them in the same category as Jon Carry!

      Posted by texasred on 2006 11 28 at 12:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. You know what I like about Aussie politics?

      They’re so screwed up, it makes the American politics almost comprehensible.

      Almost.

      Posted by mojo on 2006 11 28 at 12:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. #25: Man, you said it! I’ve already received a letter from one “Archy the Cockroach” (in small case letters and with no punctuation) threatening a defamation suit.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 12:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. I could never trust a man whose fingernails are longer and prettier than mine.

      [h/t crittenden]
      Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 11 28 at 01:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. #27:  Has his sidekick mehitabel weighed in too?

      Posted by texasred on 2006 11 28 at 01:07 PM • permalink

 

    1. #29: No, I excluded cats from my list of repugnant animals, but I hear that she may file a friend of the court brief.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 01:13 PM • permalink

 

    1. #28 rebeccaH: I think those fingernails are supposed to be suggestive of little Swift Boats and the wake they leave behind them as they zoom up some Cambodian river. It’s a little known fact, but a green beret medic once gave John a magic fingernail file.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 01:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. Paco #29-would that be an amicus purriae brief in that case?

      Posted by 68W40 on 2006 11 28 at 01:34 PM • permalink

 

    1. 32: Yes, I believe it would. And, sink me, I should have thought of that gag myself, damme if I shouldn’t’ve.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 01:37 PM • permalink

 

    1. Paco BTW-I ordered the WWI books that you recommended on another thread and picked them up at the Post Office today (The Two-Headed Eagle, The Emperor’s Coloured Coat and A Sailor of Austria-couldn’t afford the other one).  I am looking forward to reading them over my Christmas break.  Thanks for the tip.

      Posted by 68W40 on 2006 11 28 at 01:56 PM • permalink

 

    1. #34: I do, indeed, hope you enjoy them. Incidentally, did you buy them on Amazon? I haven’t read The Two-Headed Eagle yet, and I’d like to know where to get a copy.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 02:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. Yep-Amazon, pretty reasonable too.  The whole lot came to about $45 including shipping.

      Posted by 68W40 on 2006 11 28 at 02:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. #36: Thanks, 91B30! I’m going to pick that one up shortly.

      In case you haven’t already read them, you may also be interested in George MacDonald Fraser’s fictionalized stories based on his experiences in North Africa after WWII with (I believe) a Scottish unit. The series features the exploits of Private McAuslan, and was published in three volumes of paperbacks, and also in a one-volume omnibus edition (entitled, I think, The Complete McAuslan). Some of these stories made me literally laugh out loud – which was kind of embarrassing, since I read many of them on crowded trains – and Fraser adds an epilogue in which he recounts running into his old commanding officer many years after the books’ publication, and the shrewd old bird correctly identified the real-life models of practically all the characters (I think he even correctly surmised that McAuslan was a combination of two of the men in his unit). And there is also Fraser’s memoirs of his experiences in Burma in WWII, Quartered Safe Out Here, which is one of the best book of war memoirs I’ve ever read.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 02:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. Paco, I agree. The McAuslan stories have got to be some of the funniest books I have ever read. Fraser served as an officer in the Gordon Highlanders in North Africa and Scotland straight after the War. The individual books are ‘The General Danced at Dawn’, ‘McAuslan in the Rough’ and ‘The Sheikh and the Dustbin’. I haven’t read Quartered Safe Out Here, but will have a look for it. Thanks for the tip.

      Posted by AlphaMikeFoxtrot on 2006 11 28 at 03:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. Paco-thanks once again.  If I recall correctly you posted about Fraser in that previous thread, except about his “Flashman” series (which I have to admit that I haven’t read either).

      I’m a sucker for historical fiction especially military stories.  I adored both the “Aubrey/Maturin” series and the “Hornblower” books.  I also liked the “Sharpe’s” books, even though they were very formulaic.

      Posted by 68W40 on 2006 11 28 at 03:23 PM • permalink

 

    1. These guys should try another line of work. Like, for example, work.

      To paraphrase Neal Boortz speaking about Maxine Waters (the witch from California who wants to outlaw SUV’s), if these peoaple couldn’t get elected to public office, they would be on food stamps.

      Well, except for John Kerry, who can always count on the Mrs.

      Posted by Mark V. on 2006 11 28 at 04:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. The McAuslan stories are great, as is most of the Fraser oeuvre. The late, lamented friend of mine from college who recommended them got me hooked, even though as a typical college bonehead with no sense of history a lot of it was lost on me then.

      But I just got the latest Flashman, and Fraser (who in his Hollywood History of the World claims no political affiliation beyond the opposite of whomever he was covering as a young reporter) goes into a towering rage against modern governments that lie their way into war (I’m paraphrasing). Gee, whom could he mean? You mean no government has EVER lied to its people before? And THIS was a LIE? Gosh!

      So I haven’t even gotten to Sir Harry’s latest; the intro cheezed me off too much.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 11 28 at 05:43 PM • permalink

 

    1. #41 Mark: I was a little baffled by some of the remarks in that preface, too (although I don’t think it was so much a towering rage; more like a smoldering innuendo). However, the novel is good, so you ought to return to it one of these days.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 06:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. Thanks, Paco-Man; with that kind of recommendation I must return to it.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 11 28 at 06:26 PM • permalink

 

    1. Speaking of John F’in Kerry, I think I finally found out what he was doing in Cambodia all those years ago….  (NOT safe for work)

      Posted by Challeron on 2006 11 28 at 06:34 PM • permalink

 

    1. 91830,
      The books about Otto Prohaska should be a good antidote to the jollity of the Christmas season.  I read the first two, and seldom have I ever read such downer books.

      The Flashman series is good too.  They purport to be the memoirs of a Victorian period officer.  Flashman is a total coward, but becomes reconciled to defending himslef in later years.  Royal Flash was made into a movie, which has the quintessential Flashman line: “Never hit a man when he’s down.  He might get up again.”

      In Flashman at the Charge our hero muses on the Crimean War (quoted from memory).  “I was as close as anyone to the conduct of the war in the summer of ‘54 and I can truthfully tell you that the official view was ‘Well, well, here we are. at war with Russia beside France to protect Turkey.  Very good.  What should we do?  Better attack Russia eh?  (pause) Big place, ain’t it?’”

      Another good Fraser book is The Steel Bonnets about the reivers of the Anglo-Scottish border.  This is a work of history not fiction, although a lot of the stuff reads like fiction.  Very readable and interesting.  Think Iraq is a mess?  Read about the Border.  For centuries the only thing that could control the reivers was the Scottish King coming through with an army accompanied by the hangman, and a similar effort on the English side.  That didn’t happen very often.

      Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 11 28 at 10:51 PM • permalink

 

    1. #45 Michael: There is, of course, a sense of a world vanishing, never to reappear, in the Prohaska series, but I do not think the books are “downers”, in the sense of being relentlessly depressing. There is much humor in the books, even approaching farce on occasion, and the solid history worked into the novels . . . well, as the tiresome phrase has it, “it is what it is”. Another fascinating aspect of the novels – which doesn’t at all touch upon the “mood”, whether humorous or tragic – is the admirable scholarship Biggins displayed in pulling together the facts concerning the arcane technology involved in actually operating the old U-Boats.

      Depressing? I simply didn’t find them so. Now, if you really want to talk depressing, what about The Cypresses Believe in God – which, nonetheless, is an excellent novel about the Spanish Civil War. Or perhaps Man’s Fate? Or – my favorite depressing novel – Darkness at Noon?

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 11:38 PM • permalink

 

    1. I’ve heard about the Flashman series but haven’t started it yet. Thanks for the reminder, I’ll have to give them a try.

      Posted by Dr Alice on 2006 11 28 at 11:38 PM • permalink

 

    1. #47: One last Fraser note before Andrea releases the bees. Mr. American is an interesting novel, and a bit of a departure, for Fraser, in that it is not really historical fiction, but the theme is fascinating: an American prospector, having struck it rich, moves to England, where he is followed by desperados (or was it just one desperado?) from the states, who try to kill him. The action takes place in the years leading up to WWI, and the last chapter includes a hilarious cameo appearance by retired general, Harry Flashman.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 28 at 11:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. I heartily second the reading of anything by Fraser (his history of the riding clans— cattle rustlers in armor—of the Border Marches is unbeatable), but Flashman is also superb political and military history recounted from the view of the scruffiest (and funniest) protagonist imaginable: he was, after all, stolen whole from “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” where he was the villain.

      Posted by Celaeno on 2006 11 29 at 01:38 AM • permalink

 

    1. I wasn’t that pleased with Mr. American, PacMaster; it was good, but just too long and lacking in the trademark Fraser wit. Black Ajax was better, a historical novel with a mostly real-life cast. But I actually think it suffered by the intrusion of Harry Flashman’s old man, one of the few fictional characters but, as I recall, key to the plot. This disturbed me since the rest of it seemed as accurate a recreation as you could ask in a novel.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 11 29 at 10:37 AM • permalink

 

    1. Pleas to apologize: Do NOT follow my link above; it wasn’t a hijack link when I first posted it (maybe because it’s hard to hijack a Mac; I don’t know).

      All it was, was a fairly-tame photo of a young man who looks astonishingly like Kerry during his Vietnam days, naked in a swimming pool with a SE Asian female.

      I’m very sorry if I caused anyone a lot of pop-up nuisances.

      (otoh, I’m not all that sure that anyone even reads my comments here….) :-\

      Posted by Challeron on 2006 11 29 at 11:16 AM • permalink

 

    1. #50: I think Mr. American was a bit of an experiment, complete with disappointed love interest. No, not as good as the rest, but worth a read.

      Posted by paco on 2006 11 29 at 12:08 PM • permalink

 

    1. #51, Challeron:

      I clicked the link and got the image you described. Didn’t notice anything wrong, what’d I miss?

      Posted by Grimmy on 2006 11 30 at 06:48 AM • permalink

 

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