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.
While being no fan of the unlamented Mr Howard, in this particular case John Flynn’s point is well made. The unavailability of Blair House is indeed due to President elect Obama wanting to move in before the usual 15th of January. It appears the only one making a big deal of it is Crikey.
Very funny and very accurate description of how our Little Man operates!The Medal, by the way, has also been given to many cronies whose incompetence and greed have made us look like nitwits throughout the world. Your Mr. Howard was so accommodating that I suppose the least the Little Man could do was provide some DC digs for his visit, although the Australian Embassy is a much more dramatic DC address. I hope the Australian people understand that most of us will be very, very happy to see the dawn on January 20! Many Texans (I lived there for over 20 years) knew the 2000 coup would lead us into trouble, but I doubt that any of us imagined the disaster it would bring us and our friends. Among our many hopes is that the Obama Administration can restore our standing in the world and most especially with our long-time allies. I sense that more than a few Ozzies will pop a Victoria Bitters on January 20!
Yes and no. Howard should vacate the booking immediately. It’s bad governance, bad manners and bad for the world to disrupt Obama’s transition. And this is a real disruption.
No reflection on Howard at least in this respect unless he vacates immediately. Why didn’t W Bush people break the booking straight away in favour of Obama?
I smell a rat. A big fat Gaza rat? I’ll believe it all when he’s actually sworn in and installed in the oval office. I’m getting that nervous feeling again.
Presumably Tom means d-u-f-u-s or an alternative spelling of d-o-o-f-u-s.
By your own quotes Obama apparently will get access when the President-elect traditionally gets access on Jan 15.
Doubtless neither Howard nor Obama are losing sleep and despite your prejudices showing Tom, neither should you….
Given the current enthusiasm of Crikey for fact-checking it might have been a good idea to check around a bit before saying John Howard is unfairly keeping Obama out of Blair House. As numerous press articles reported in December the normal date when Blair House is made available for a President-elect is Jan. 15, so the stay by Howard on the night of Jan. 12 is no big deal if normal protocols had been followed.
What happened is that Obama changed his mind – after having said he would not be arriving in Washington D.C. until Jan. 17 – and later asked to move in at an earlier than usual date. Read about it in the New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/us/politics/31obama.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink