Monday 9 June 2008

Howard awarded Queen's Birthday AC but not everyone is impressed

John Winston Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia, has just been awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia.
Not the Order of the Garter or Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports with which he hoped to emulate his dead idol, Robert Gordon Menzies, but better than nothing ('Mrs Bucket' apparently sees the AC as a stepping stone to greater honours).

Of course not everyone was or is impressed.
Saturday's online mention of his AC honour only came up on Google News once and yesterday he might never have rated a mention if he had
not shared billing with Australian supermodel Elle or "The Don" centenary wasn't coming up.

War crimes is still the phrase which more readily trips from the lip when Bush, Blair and Howard are mentioned.
At last count Google Search came up with 128,000 mentions of war crimes and Howard.
War crimes outrank honours anytime.

Here are some example article links.
Australia`s Howard accused of war crimes over Iraq: Report [Indonesia]
Bush, Blair, Howard wanted for war crimes [Estonia]
Australia group seeks ICC war crimes charges against ex-PM for Iraq deployment [USA]
Oz PC racism & ICC complaint over Australian & Coalition war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan [Australia]John Howard a 'war criminal' [Australia]
Howard is war criminal, says former colleague [Australia]

Update:
By this morning Google News mention of Howard's honour had risen to four (after the original Saturday item was shifted or renamed). Perhaps his taxpayer-funded assistant did a quick ring around to wake the media to the momentous event they were otherwise ignoring.

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