Word: defeatism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...National coalition - including, it appears, the northwestern Sydney seat held for the past 33 years by Prime Minister John Howard. With 77% of votes counted in Sydney's Bennelong district, Howard trailed by several hundred votes. In an emotional speech Nov. 24 Howard took full responsibility for the conservatives' defeat. Then one of Australia's most successful leaders - and one of President George W. Bush's staunchest western allies - walked off the stage and into retirement...
...marginal seats, where small shifts in voter sentiment can make or break governments. There was reason to think swinging voters would applaud Howard: Australia is in its 16th successive year of economic growth, and unemployment and interest rates are the lowest since the '70s. "This is the first defeat of a government in decades where there was no evident anger or public rage," said former Liberal Senator Michael Baume. Instead there was ennui. Many voters were tired of Howard, and unexcited by Treasurer (now Opposition leader) Peter Costello, 50, who was due to take over from Howard in 2009. There...
...solved anything" [Nov. 12]. Such a shockingly wrongheaded statement makes one wonder why anyone would want to hear his opinion on anything. One war should be enough in itself to refute his statement: the American Revolutionary War. It took years of fighting and the deprivation of American troops to defeat King George III and his minions. Negotiations could not have persuaded the English government to give up its colonies. In addition, the efforts needed to win the war helped form the American character - a character that Cruise often portrays in his successful movies. Frank Jerome, Columbus, Indiana...
...reliant on charisma, Howard has been an indestructible force in Australian politics. As recently as 1989, his own party thought him unelectable and dumped him as leader. But since 1996, he's won four elections for the Liberal-National Coalition, twice pulling it back from the brink of defeat. He's left behind a trail of defeated Labor Party leaders, becoming in the process a hero of conservatives across the Western world...
...Howard Government gives the impression of being baffled as to how it could be facing electoral defeat at a time when the Australian economy, despite the strain of rising interest rates, is in fine shape. Of all the factors working against the Government, among the most potent is widespread distrust of its employer-friendly overhaul of the system for dealing with labor and workplace disputes. And here the dreaded parallel with the unfortunate Stanley Bruce becomes more stark. Bruce's demise in 1929 followed a period of industrial mayhem involving miners and laborers. For the perception that he's messed...