Irrational Politics?

The Australian reports today about a comment by John Howard MP,PM. The comment was about Barak Obama, whose policies in John Howards opinion:

If I was running al-Qa'ida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats

This is not only irrational for an Australian Prime Minister to comment on a potetial US Presidential Candidat and his policies it is bad International Relations. All that we know is George W Bush will not intervene on the matter, simply for two reasons:

1. He himself has been quilty of making comments about a potential Australian Prime Minister over much the same issue, bringing the troops home.
2. George W Bush is a lame-duck incumbant, who has no inclination to minimise flak heading the Democrats way as the US gears up to elect a new and hopefully smarter President.

Following Barak Obama's comments or reply to Howards diatribe:

I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced," Senator Obama told reporters in the mid-western US state of Iowa, according to Agence France-Presse."

"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq.

"Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."

I suspect that John Howard is guilty of bringing the office of Prime Minister and Parliament into disrepute. Maybe we will have that opportunity at our next General Election sometime after the US has it's new President, whoever that maybe.

The Democrats have too strong candidates, what of the Republicans, is there any among them to challenge the Bushes?