little johnny keeps obama out

From Crikey.com

Isn't this typical of Howard? words fail me....

Richard Farmer writes:



Our Johnny keeps the Obamas out. It is always a bit embarrassing in Washington when there's a new President. The old one hangs around in the White House for two and a half months after the election while the new one prepares his team to take over. The normal thing to make the home switching as painless as possible is for the incoming President to take up residence a couple of weeks before the official inauguration in Blair House, the President's guesthouse, managed by the Office of the Chief of Protocol at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue. This January things have been different and Washington insiders were puzzled as to why Barack Obama, his wife and two children were spending their time in a Washington Hotel. Did this mark a new point in relations between incoming and outgoing, Democrat and Republican? Was George W Bush practicing some final form of revenge?


At last such unwholesome speculation has ended with the Washington Post revealing this morning "Blair House Mystery Solved: It's John Howard". The veil is lifted, said the report. "We now know who is booked at Blair House, kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family to the waiting list and across Lafayette Park to the Hay-Adams Hotel. The only overnight visitor at the presidential guest manse is none other than John Howard, a former Australian prime minister and leading member of President Bush's coalition of the willing in Iraq."

Our Johnny will be in Washington to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from his retiring friend George Dubya on 13 January. Whereas fellow recipients of that honour, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, declined the presidential invitation to stay at Blair House and found private accommodation the Howard entourage accepted the invitation to bunk down at Blair House on the night of 12 January.

The Obama family are now scheduled to move in on 15 January.