George W Bush called John Howard the “man of steel”, invited him home to his Texas ranch, and gave him a quasi-royal reception at the White House. But he never kissed him on the cheek.
Barack Obama will deliver a peck to Julia Gillard when he arrives in Australia on Wednesday, and also will bestow the greatest gift an American president can offer a Prime Minister – proximity to his power.
It’s one of those significant indicators of transitions in global influence. Once Australian PMs hiked it to London to ramp up their status by being seen at Downing St and Buckingham Palace. Now it’s the Oval Office, and soon it might be the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Bill Clinton came to Australia in November, 1996, but didn’t want to bestow much of anything on John Howard. They never really clicked after Howard ousted Paul Keating – whom Clinton liked – earlier that year.
Clinton understood the effect of a presidential snub.
Equally canny, Bush understood the potency derived from sharing the President’s company, and by implication his stature and authority.
So in May 2003 he invited Howard, his steadfast partner in the Iraq invasion, to Crawford, Texas; in May 2006 hosted him in Washington including a photo opportunity on the White House porch for lots of royal waving; and in 2007 came to Sydney to attend an APEC summit, but just as important to lend whatever support he could to his mate, the politically doomed man of steel.
Barack Obama comes here grateful for Australia’s support - which began when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister - for involving the G20 of top national economies in reaching agreements on global economic management.
He also is grateful for our efforts in Afghanistan, and shares the sadness of our losses there.
The President will be here to mark the 60th anniversary of our alliance with the US, and to use a speech to a joint session of Parliament on Thursday to elaborate “on how the US sees the Asia-Pacific, the efforts that we’ve taken, again, within the region, over the course of the last thee years to strengthen our core alliances to engage emerging powers like China and India and others, and to engage Asian regional institutions like APEC and the East Asia Summit”, according to a White House briefing.
But you’ve got to think that while these are the tasks that are bring Obama here, it’s not too much to presume he also is coming because he really wants to. He’s tried twice already over three years.
He would like the opportunity to be among friends and out of the cauldron which is US politics.
Last week Republican hopeful for the presidency Ric Perry made the unhelpful kind of headlines by forgetting a third of his own policy during a debate with GOP rivals.
It was an excruciating political moment, televised live, as he could think of only two of the three government departments he would abolish if he became President.
But what must have struck many Australians was that one of the two departments he did remember was set for extinction was education. He wouldn’t inject new standards to the department of education, wouldn’t change its functions or adjust its funding. He would just get rid of it.
It is remarkable to hear a national leader nominating education - the engine room of opportunity and economic growth - for abolition.
That’s an insight into the political peer group against whom the President is competing, and who are attacking him for poor policy choice.
In a coincidental engagement, Obama and his host will visit a Canberra school Thursday, because, as the White House briefing says, “Education is very important for both President Obama and Prime Minister Gillard.”
Throw in the new carbon pricing laws and the move to tax big miners, and he’s got to feel he’s among friends.
Further, Obama will have “brief’’ talks with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
The overhanging irony is that the leader of Australia’s conservative forces backs universal health care and has proposed generous government-funded parental leave provisions, which in the US would be enough to have him declared a communist by some anti-Obama elements.
No matter how friendly the Obama visit, it will involve another takeover of the Australian Parliament by American security priorities and agents.
Parliament House workers won’t be able to park there. They will be bussed in. And reporters will have to wear two forms of security pass to get to anywhere near the President.
In past visits the reporters who came with the President decided their own rules.
Back in 2003 there were “difficulties encountered on the day” of the Bush address to Parliament because “the American media departed from the agreed arrangements”, according to an official report to the Speaker in 2004.
A US television camera was snuck into Parliament itself, as just one example.
That type of tension over security and access could appear again, but would not be representative of the relationship between the visitor and the woman waiting for that smooch on the cheek.
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@ToryShepherd I hope that's in your piece tomorrow. Also - are you coming over this week or laaaaaater?
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