When it comes to political weasels, a top spot has to be reserved for Harper's Australian chum, prime minister John Howard. If there's one thing that gets this churlish little man from "down under" worked up, it's the mention of energy.
Howard is like Harpo when it comes to fossil fuel restraint. He can't stand it. Australia has a vast store of coal and Howard is intent on protecting that industry even while he says he's committed to fighting global warming with an election looming and his numbers tumbling. Yeah, right.
But Howard couldn't hold himself back today when his own energy minister, Brendan Nelson, contradicted the boss by admitting that oil was and is a factor in Australia's participation in the Iraq conquest and occupation. Brendan Nelson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Iraq was "an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians ... need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq".
With that, Howard rushed off to find a microphone of his own. He managed to find one at Sydney Radio 2GB where he tried to reinforce his party line, "We are not there because of oil and we didn't go there because of oil. A lot of oil comes from the Middle East - we all know that - but the reason we remain there is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing democracy."
Okay, Johnny, yeah sure. Trouble is, the Australian people seem to have caught on to you.
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