"I mean, what he did to Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile month after month through the AWB incident, wreaked of personal criticism," Mr Howard told Southern Cross radio.
"And he took the moral high ground to Himalayan levels on that occasion and, of course, he was proved to have been wrong. "People that do that must expect to be held to account themselves."
Commissioner Terence Cole's report* into the $290 million in kickbacks exonerated the Australian government of any wrongdoing in the scandal, finding it was deceived at every turn by AWB.
But the report acknowledged the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) failed to fully investigate the warnings about AWB's activities.
Yes, pointing out that the Government had either corruptly or incompetently allowed $300 million of Australian bribes to be sent specifically to Saddam Hussein's regime to get around the Oil For Food programme in order to assist him in buying weapons to use against our allies' and our troops is of course just the same as attacking someone for having had a meal with a corrupt former premier from their own party.
Rudd: Had lunch with Brian Burke.
Downer, Vaile, Howard: Pretended not to notice whilst the AWB defrauded the Iraqi people of $300 million set aside to buy them food, to give it to Saddam Hussein to buy weapons to use against us.
Rudd must resign! Howard must stay as PM! These two positions make perfect sense!
*The "Commission" set up by Howard with very limited terms of reference so that it couldn't fully investigate the Government's role.
UPDATE: While we're there: "wreaked"?! Oh, Age. And... wait, you've completely changed the article on that URL. "Keating comes to Rudd's defence"? That's not what it said earlier, hence the URL "howard-piles-pressure-on-rudd". Would it be too much for you to publish new versions of articles with a new URL, so that links still make sense? Okay? Or is this some deliberate new policy to stuff up blogs? You know News Ltd is going to start doing the same thing, right?
ELSEWHERE: Senator Bartlett summarises the Liberals' new plan:
The winning formula for the next election has suddenly become clear. All one side has to do is get Brian Burke to walk around the halls of Parliament House and greet people as they come out of their offices. Like some walking, man-sized ebola virus, every person whose hand he shakes will have their political and moral integrity instantly compromised, thus forcing them to commit hara-kiri to spare the credibility of their party from being eaten away.
It's a fairly witty piece.
AND FURTHER: Ian Campbell, the poor muggins who jumped on a rubber sword for his leader, is trying to convince anyone who'll listen that the issue will bite... it will!
Senator Campbell, who quit as human services minister on Saturday after conceding he met Mr Burke last year, predicted a swifter demise for Mr Rudd. "He'll be unelectable by the end of the next fortnight - he's shot," he told The Age.
What do you mean, my career is going to be the only casualty of this "scandal"? They told me my "sacrifice" would win us an election! They promised!
