Also hilarious (tho Sheepy would be nodding his idiotic gay head at every word of sarcasm thinking they are sincere) are these posts from Pollbludger in response to People Skills calling Rudd machievellian:
It really pi$$es me off how everyone uses Machiavelli as a lazy ignorant euphemism for nasty politics. He was ruthless and calculating but that is a good thing as long as it’s tempered by good qualities, of which Niccolo had many. He was highly principled and wanted good government.
From the Mad Monk;
"The real Kevin Rudd is a ruthless, calculating politician.
"I think that the real Kevin Rudd, the Kevin Rudd that has nothing to do with Dietrich Bonheoffer, and everything to do with Nicola Machiavelli, was on display last week."
Whereas John Howard was St Francis of Assisi, who loved animals and small children (though not in the Michael Jackson way), and always forgave his enemies their mistakes and never *dreamed* of exploiting them for political purposes, like by ruthlessly wedging them with the voters and calling them soft on terrorism or anything underhanded like that. Also he *never* falsely claimed to have pictures of children being thrown overboard, or that he had intelligence proving that Iraq had WMD when they didn’t. He would *never* do anything like that. Not ever.