Iraq: the denial of reality

Duncan Kerr Letter to the Editor, the Australian

Mr Sheridan’s comment reminds me of Monty Python’s ‘indefatigable’ Knight of Ni. After having both his arms chopped off, the knight insists it is ‘just a flesh wound’ and after then losing both his legs as well, he cries, ‘Come back here and take what’s coming to you. I’ll bite your legs off!’

GREG Sheridan’s (‘Don’t read too much into it’, 10 November) dismissal of the sweeping mandate just delivered to the Democrats in the US reflects the same denial of reality that led President Bush and his Australian handmaidens into the morass of Iraq in the first place — a place where facts and their significance are continually denied.

Mr Sheridan’s comment reminds me of Monty Python’s ‘indefatigable’ Knight of Ni. After having both his arms chopped off, the knight insists it is ‘just a flesh wound’ and after then losing both his legs as well, he cries, ‘Come back here and take what’s coming to you. I’ll bite your legs off!’

US voters have re-set their political system for change. The suggestion the Democrats’ ‘thumping’ of the Republicans was not a landslide is nonsense — the comparison Mr Sheridan makes comparing seats won and lost in earlier elections ignores recent redistributions that were designed to prevent big changes in the number of seats changing hands.

Greg Sheridan is only right inasmuch as the Republicans still hold the Presidency, and that with time and a changed strategy for Iraq more successful than the current mess and failure, it is not impossible the Republicans could yet recover and even win the next Presidential election. After all, if a week is a long time in politics, two years is forever. But Australia should face up to the current political reality in the United States (and Iraq). We deserve better than the head in the sand ‘business as usual’ approach which is represented by John Howard and justified by Mr Sheridan

Duncan Kerr SC MP

Federal Member for Denison.