Loose cannons

Issue 

Had the royal touch

"He came across very arrogant, like a total pompous git." — Comment made about Richard Butler, the recently resigned Queen's representative in Tasmania, quoted in the August 11 Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Selfless

"I was aware, and still am aware of course, that legally and technically we probably didn't have to pay a termination payment to him, as it was a queen's pleasure employment. But I believe very much that natural justice was a deserved thing for Richard Butler in this case and I moved to provide some... He then took the decision that the only way to ensure that the controversy would subside was for him to act selflessly, as he did." — Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon, August 11, justifying his decision to award Butler a $600,000 golden handshake following Butler's resignation after only 10 months in the $370,000 a year vice-regal post.

The alternative warmaker

"I saw a headline that said 'Kerry Would Have Gone to War.' That's bull. He wouldn't have. Not the way Bush did." — US Senator Joseph Biden, quoted in the August 12 New York Times, "refuting" the idea that if Democratic Party presidential candidate John Kerry had been president he would have ordered a US invasion of Iraq.

Enemy sympathiser

"People are tired of us being here. It's the same as if someone came to the US and started taking over. You'd do what you'd have to do." — Lance Corporal Anthony Robert, stationed at a US marine base in downtown Ramadi, Iraq, quoted in the August 12 Boston Globe.

From Green Left Weekly, August 18, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.


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