The Age carries a story

The Age carries a story by Annabel Crab about a White House brief for the Presidents upcoming trip to Australia. Under the banner ‘Major blunder in White House Australia brief’ we are told, and expected to believe that the White House thinks John Major is the Prime Minister of Australia. The rundown, however, gets off to a shaky start by identifying the Australian Prime Minister as “John Major”. “In 1996, a Liberal/National Party coalition came to power under Prime Minister John Major after 13 years of ALP rule,” it claims. If the White House tag is on this brief, it would have been compiled by someones favourite niece from Montanna doing work experience. More likely, it was a setup -as in “Anna, could you find or engineer something negative about Howard.” The Howard Haters will be giggling over this and thanking the Age for pointing out how insignificant Howard is on the world stage. It’s a double hammy as well, as in, by inference, Bush doesn’t know who Howard is. Stupid Whiter House, dumb President and unknown Howard. A left wing trifecta. Strange, but the Washington Post news feed doesn’t mention what would be a major diplomatic stuff-up nor does any newspaper other than the Age – well known for setting low standards of journalism and failing to meet them. A tabloid mentality on broadsheet paper.