Iraq: PM shuts down press conference with John Howard

Yesterday, at a joint press conference with George Bush's southern mouthpiece, John Howard, Helen Clark attempted to shut the conference down because she didnt like the line of questioning from Scoop's Alastair Thompson. In fact she described him as a heckler. Alastair was questioning the Aussie PM about his extraordinary slanging match with the United States presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama a week ago, when he warned that his victory would be a boost for terrorists- and could destroy Iraq.

Howard said: "If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Mr Obama but also for the Democrats".

This was seen as interference in the domestic affairs of another country as Howard was virtually telling people in another country not to vote Democrats. Howard should stop running Australia like the 52nd state of the USA. If he really supports the war in Iraq perhaps he could send more than 1400 troops there to assist with the 140,000 US troops.

It is clear that John Howard is not an ally of the US. He is an ally of George Bush. Therefore Australia is an ally of the republicans and perhaps Howard should have been questioned on this, and asked why he has cut the Democrats out of US politics.

Actually, I recon Helen Clark would love a US Democrat government. Could that be why she shut up Alastair Thompson when he attempted to ask her what she thought of Howard's Obama comments. Could that be why she wants to protect Howard from answering questions of the NZ media? She doesn't want his answers reported.

And here's the Australian media's take on things. Also more over here