President-Elect Barack Obama had asked to have the use of Blair House, the official guest-house of the President, when his family moved to Washington this week so that his girls could start school. Unfortunately, the place had already booked through to 15th January – when it is made available for the incoming President to inhabit until his inauguration.
So who gazumped Obama with the booking of Blair House? The Washington Post looked into it, and now they have received the answer.
John Winston Howard. The guy whose upcoming receipt of the Medal of Freedom was only announced yesterday.
Tony Blair and Alvaro Uribe have opted for alternative accommodation. But I guess Howard wanted to do his best to make sure al Qaeda doesn’t get all its prayers answered.
Who’s paying for Howard (and Janette, surely) to stay at the Blair House — the Australian taxpayers, the majority of whom don’t think he deserves this medal, or the Americans?
Because if it’s us, I’m going back on the dole and never paying another tax dollar. (Yeah yeah, I know it’s not that simple)
Howard has always been an obstruction; nothing ever changes.
He was invited to stay there by the Bush administration, but in light of events it would only be fair that he find new accomodation.
What’s this Medal of Freedom thing? Is it free? Is it a medal for being free or for talking vaguely about freedom and terror, light and dark, the force and the resistance, the high and the low, the good the bad and the ugly and other non discript things relating to people far far away, who you don’t like. Perhaps he gets free accomodation because it is a medal of freedom, which I guess extends to freedom of accomocdation.
The medal is in fact a token, which opens the door to Blair House, like the old turnstiles at the pool.