The Third Man - why Willie Mason and John Howard have embraced postmodernism

Hot on the heals of Willie’s acknowledgement that he is a commodity came the prime ministerial revelation that he too, is thinking the same way.

The following morning on the Alan Jones talkback breakfast radio program on 2GB, John Howard commodified himself. The idea of political leaders as commodities is something new in the Australian political landscape. What is does is provide political representatives with a means to avoid blame for things that go wrong.

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma was spectacularly successful in this when he asked the electorate to vote for him because he had been in the job a short time and everything that had gone wrong before that was Bob Carr’s fault.

On the Alan Jones program, the Prime Minister said Kevin Rudd’s changes to workplace legislation were negative and “John Howard’s” existing policy was good.

In this John was revealing as much of his persona as Willie did. He was asking listeners to think of him not as a man in the twilight of his life but as a commodity.

He was asking that we accept the postmodern condition and that when we think of our choice of leader, we think of the value in the commodity on the field rather than off.

What a choice.