Rudd Wins In Australia

The Aussies have elected Kevin Rudd of the Labor party to replace John Howard.

You can read how it went down by following this link, then this one and finally this one.

Howard had a good run that was the equal of Tony Blair's in Britain. One can only hope that Rudd doesn't continue this analogy and start off like Gordon Brown has. Let's further hope that Rudd realizes the importance of the battle against al-Qaeda and the importance of a united front against all terrorism.

One last thing that occurs to me, no Aussie leader has had to deal with the wrath of the right-wing blogosphere. Howard had to deal with some of it from the left but it was mostly people like Blair foil Margo Kingston who was easily ridiculed. I don't know if blogs have the same impact as they do here (the immigration battle being the best example) but I would suspect that they do. Rudd is now in a leadership position and all those in political groups in Oz who allied against Howard and slammed his policies will have to, you know, actually lead their nation in what is a very tumultuous time--at least on the foreign affairs front.

Update: The NY Times headline reads: Bush Ally Defeated in Australia. I don't recall the headline Bush Ally Wins in France when Sarkozy was elected, do you?