The Ponds Institue

In a breathtaking leap of logic, Gerard Henderson pokes his head out of the "Sydney Institute" (you know the one, just down the street from the Ponds Institute) and suggests that because voters for Howard here and Bush in the US were in the (slim) majority, therefore they were actually correct, and that they shouldn't be called ignorant, or greedy, or any other hurtful names.

Yet it is unreasonable for those who oppose the Bush-Blair-Howard position to dismiss those who disagree with them as idiots or greedy or whatever.

Even if some of them are. The whole emphasis around "family" values, the acceptance of being lied to, of submitting to fear; of course that makes those views correct. That people in inner-city Australia worried about terrorists, and the fact that voters expressed concerns that "labor will put up interest rates" doesn't mean these people are greedy or ignorant. Except maybe it does, to some extent. Yobbo has an excellent post today on just how Bush voters see the world and the issues surrounding the campaign, and it's not pretty. Often for unexpected reasons - go read it.