Australia's ministerial imposters

Alan Ramsay is right on the button in his weekly op-ed piece in this morning's SMH:

"Alexander Downer and Brendan Nelson were in Washington this week. A greater pair of ministerial impostors representing Australia at the very hub of US military and political power is hard to imagine. What must Americans really think of two such characters from the other side of the world? Do they see the joke, you wonder? Or is the Bush Administration, with its frightening caricature of a President, grateful for any visitors, particularly those forever genuflecting, who continue to tell it how right it is and what staunch "mates" it has in the land of the kangaroo?".

And as Ramsay goes on to write, this quite extraordinary statement from Lord Downer of Baghdad:

"Foreign Minister Downer, speaking on future Iraq policy to reporters in Washington on Tuesday: "Our view is, first of all, it's not [about] timetables. It's not the haste with which the President makes his decisions. It's the quality of the decisions that counts. And, you know, our view is he should make the decisions when he feels comfortable he's got the right formula in place. That's what history will judge him by."

George Bush and "decisions of quality?"

Try to keep from your jaw dropping as you read the complete article here.

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