When I spot someone I know at a function which I’d really rather not be at, I usually acknowledge them with a one finger to the eyebrow salute.
Clearly, there’s bugger all going on in the real world, so little in fact that the dearth of genuine news is sufficient to keep the Fairfax and News Corp media focussed on a meeting half a world away, of an organisation Australia is not a party to, which our PM just happens to be attending because we’re involved in Afghanistan. Actually, plaudits to Kevin Rudd, while I’m on the issue, for broadening Australia’s foreign policy agenda to incorporate NATO and issues with a Euro-centric flavour. Ought to be more of it.
I noticed this Salute to Bush just a joke, says Rudd – National – smh.com.au“>’salute to Bush’ crap firstly today in the Oz. Frankly, I didn’t give it any credence because the Rudd I know is so much smarter than to be caught genuinely saluting George W. Bush as though he were some kind of commander to the Australian PM. Note, I say ‘genuinely’. It’s so painfully obvious that what Kevin Rudd did is what any of us would do in the midst of a meeting room gathering, surrounded by a plethora of non-english speaking dignitaries and no minders within reach, as one spots a familiar face which happens to speak english. Admittedly, an ill-formed and often mis-directed form of english, but a familiar body at any rate. ‘Oh, thank goodness, someone I know. It’s Dubya. He’ll do’ .
Come on Australian media, get realistic for once in your collective pathetic lives. This is the Kevin Rudd we elected. A relatively common man with a relatively common man’s affectations. He’s not a blank canvas to be created at the behest of the MSM’s latest whims. He’s not John Winston Howard. Rigid, colourless and predictable. He is his own person, with his own unique mannerisms and way of doing things. If he chooses on the spur of the moment to recognise the POTUS across a crowded and incomprehensible room with a casual, theatrical salute, then that’s a mark of the man’s relaxed, casual demeanour. It’s certainly not conduct unbecoming of an Australian PM, as Senator Brown would have us believe, nor is it inappropriate. Perhaps it might be for Brendan Nelson who never appears with a hair out of place, but it’s not for Kevin Rudd.
For fuck sake, get out and find us some REAL news to read. Not mindless, childish, baseless rumour-mongering off the back of an individual’s casual actions. I suppose of the PM sticks his finger in his ear at any time, we’ll be reading “Rudd Mines Earwax”.