Dirk Flinthart's (not at all) disillusioned Whimsies

Disillusioned? With government in Australia? Not likely!

Hey! Anybody in this country who is disappointed with our man Johnny is just looking at the situation from the wrong direction. Oh sure, I suppose that if you were looking for a man of substance, a leader of a nation, a true representative of his people, then you might well have cause for disappointment. (Okay. Let's be honest. You'd probably have cause to go out and buy a gun.) But if that was what you were expecting from Johnny Eyebrows, then the mistake is yours.

Now me - I'm not disappointed by John Howard at all. I regard him as possibly the most subtle and gifted comedian of a generation. In the last four years I've had more belly-laughs from Howard's Heroes than I got in the entirety of the 14 years or so of Labor government preceding it. I mean, how can you be disappointed by a man with the sheer genius to appoint Abbott and Costello to his front bench?

http://www.lawforyou.com.au/lil/ls_defamation.html

The audacity of the man! I still get fits of the giggles thinking about that little episode.

Oh, but the comedy doesn't end there. The lineup of Howard's front bench leads one to suspect that he's planning to change the national anthem to "Send In The Clowns." How else to explain the transfer of Brutal Bronwyn from the Defence desk to Aged Care, where she has continued to behave exactly like a Defence Minister...

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s109528.htm

And the really spooky thing about that is that John Clarke manages to sound more like Bronny than Bronny herself! But it doesn't end there...

http://members.optushome.com.au/thesquiz/v4n5.htm#Bronwyn

Speaking of Defense Ministers, surely the most disappointed person in Australia must be Peter Reith, who clearly wanted to be in charge of all the shiny toys and soldiers, but had to settle for Workplace Relations instead. Here's a man who successfully transformed the wharfies from a nationwide joke into folk heroes, practically overnight. Workplace Relations? More like an episode of Hogan's Heroes, with Reithy and Howard shooting it out for the role of Colonel Klink.

http://mua.tcp.net.au/pages/war1.html

Then there's good old Dick Alston, the Minister for Preventing Communications. He's nothing short of wonderful. Leave this guy in office a few more years, and we can all go back to carving notches on sticks and shouting "coo-ee!" from the rooftops. I don't know what he's got against modern communications, but whatever it is, it's big and ugly. Have a look in this place, for Alston's take on 'Net censorship:

http://www.spankoz.net/australian_censorship_proposals_ banned_words.htm

I could go on like this for days. I haven't even touched on the delightful lunacies of Michael Wooldridge, or the sophisticated punk/grunge stylings of Amanda Vanstone, the fabulous fun of Happy Alex Downer and his Two Left Feet... but Little Johnny Eyebrows doesn't have a monopoly on comedy! For example, we mustn't forget new kid on the block (and inspiration to cross-dressers everywhere) Pauline Hanson.

Sadly, Pauline's performance doesn't have the depth and range of Johnny Eyebrows and his Dancing Dummies, but what she does, she does extraordinarily well:

http://www.gorskys.com.au/articles/hanson-fruitloop.html

http://www.rubix.net.au/~ntwn/pauline/can.html (my personal favourite!); and

http://www.rubix.net.au/~ntwn/pics/tankgirl.gif

Then there's the perpetual wannabes of Australian politics: the Democrats. Their Experimental Revolving Rotating Leadership Selection Device has finally been perfected, and the bottle has come to rest pointing at Natasha Stoat-Despoiler, who has the distinction of being the only politician in the country to have drooling fanboy websites ...

http://www.uq.net.au/~zzjorgo/main_fr.html#credits

I only went there for the Picture Gallery. Woohooo! http://www.uq.net.au/~zzjorgo/pics_fr.html

And what of Kimba the White Lion and his band of merry renegades? Unfortunately, Labor's comedy skills seem to have dropped away since the halcyon days of "Biggles" Evans and Killer Keating. The Big Guy isn't nearly as upfront with his stunts, and his writers seem to be scrabbling for material...

http://www.yap.com.au/channels/comedy/article/1727.html

Frankly, I think Big Kim is less a comedy act, and more a sort of WWF character. Sod all this "Parliamentary Debate" rubbish. People are bored with it anyway. Kimba should be wearing purple Spandex undies and boots, standing in the middle of the ring roaring outrageous insults at Johnny Eyebrows and belting Peter Costello in the back of the head when he thinks the Whip isn't looking. That's real Prime Minister material!

Still, in the end, you simply have to stand back and admire a real master. What can you say about Little Johnny Eyebrows? This is the man whose performance drove the Americans to elect Dubya, in the desperate hope of closing the burgeoning Comedy Gap. Against our Johnny, even the sidesplitting performance of the Royal Family has paled, leading the British to raise the strongest vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party in a generation. He is a marvel, a wonder, a non-pareil with an embarrassing comb-over and eyebrows inherited from Bob Menzies. No mere website can do him sufficient justice, so I leave you with this piece of probing journalism:

Why did the chicken cross the road, Mister Howard?

John Howard: ''The chicken never ever crossed the road. And it was not forcibly removed from its mother. Anyway, that's a matter for the states and is of no interest to us. The United Nations should mind its own business.''

Just imagine how funny he'd be if he still had all of his eyebrows!