As an Australian observer of the US political scene, I think one can learn a lot by comparing  Obama and Australian PM Kevin Rudd (who won a landslide election in November last year after eleven long years of rightwing rule by Bush's staunch supporter John Howard). In fact, I suspect Obama's team has copied much of Rudd's tactics very deliberately.

Rudd was heavily criticized during his election campaign for adopting a "me too" policy line on major issues, but this left him able to clearly define differences on very specific topics. Obama did the same thing, at least until the financial crisis made it all irrelevant anyway. For example, both campaigns embraced the status quo on Afghanistan, but highlighted stark differences on Iraq.

On taking power, Rudd made a big show of being bipartisan, just as Obama is doing now. And just like the GOP today, the Australian Liberal/National coalition parties were decimated and in-fighting at the time. So perhaps Rudd's tactics here give an indication of where Obama is now heading?

The Australian Liberals elected a lame leader, Brendan Nelson, who was soon dubbed "the Nightwatchman" (a cricketing reference - a nightwatchman's job is to take the crease, face a few balls before sunset, and then hand over to a better batsman the next morning). Rudd made a big show of bringing Nelson into the limelight, but it was all done on Rudd's terms, often with little or no advance notice given to poor Brendan.

The result was classic wedge politics: Nelson was forced to accept Rudd's bipartisan approaches, or define an unpopular policy position by moving away from them. This lead inevitably to further schisms within the opposition parties.

The formal government apology to indigenous Australians - which Howard had defiantly rejected for so many years - is a classic example. Rudd called Nelson up on stage for an impromptu speech in support of the apology, which Nelson made a mess of by trying to simultaneously placate both the Howardistas and the pro-apology crowd. His party spent the next month arguing over what he should have said.

Of course, Rudd has never invited a Liberal into his cabinet, and the comparisons cannot be stretched too far. I remain far less optimistic about an Obama administration than most TPM readers. But I'm also hopeful that Obama might spring a few surprises - not just on me, but on his Republican colleagues as well.

The GOP only chose McCain as their presidential candidate because all the other choices were even worse. And that's exactly why McCain chose Palin.

It was supposed to be Lieberman, actually - that was the plan. But at the last minute, Joe told John that he had something big to confess. He said that if this big secret ever got out, it would be a huge scandal that would sink the GOP ticket for good.

McCain was shocked - shocked! - to hear Lieberman admit this sordid truth: he is an AIPAC stooge and has been putting Israel's interests ahead of the USA's for many years.

Shh - don't tell anybody.

Compare and contrast. Here's new Australian PM Kevin Rudd meeting Obama:

"Senator Obama called Mr Rudd this afternoon for an extended discussion but was not able to attend a face-to-face meeting because he was campaigning in Pennsylvania."

And here's Rudd meeting Clinton:

"KEVIN Rudd and Hillary Clinton hit it off so famously at their meeting in Washington that the former first lady, and candidate fighting to win the Democratic nomination for presidency, fell behind in her crucial campaign for the last ballots in Pennsylvania.

What was meant to be a quick ''meet and greet'' as the potential US president paid her respects to the Australian Prime Minister turned into a 40-minute discussion that had to be broken up by Senator Clinton's aides...

Anxious aides eventually manoeuvred Senator Clinton out of the meeting room and, after a long photograph and farewell session, her cavalcade departed, well behind time for the airport and her resumption of the campaign for Democrat nomination."

To me this says a lot about the candidates' priorities and their attitudes to politics. Clinton would rather mingle with the powerful than get down in the trenches (which probably explains why she is putting her hopes in the Democrat Party elites).

Unbelievable:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

I know that's not the official explanation for how Spitzer was caught, but it looks pretty obvious to me. This is from NYT, June 22nd, 2006:

"Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say..."

Former 9/11 Commission Chief Philip Zelikow has gone on the Democracy Now! radio show to answer serious allegations of misconduct raised in Philip Shenon's new book, including revelations that Zelikow repeatedly spoke to both Rove and Condi while leading the commission, that he pressured members to minimize criticism of Condi and link 9/11 with Iraq, and that he ordered his secretary not to keep phone logs.

He refuses to flatly deny his former secretary's claims that he called her into his office and told her not to keep logs of his phone calls, instead insisting that nobody on the Commission kept phone logs. He says Max Cleland resigned for "very personal reasons" and deflects further enquiries to "either Max or Tom Daschle or the commissioners involved". And he more or less denies everything else in Sheldon's book with a standard line: "Go ask the people who were on the commission."

It doesn't seem to bother Zelikow too much that the information which formed the cornerstone of his Commission's findings was based on information extracted by torture. What bothers him is whether or not he is the one who is going to be blamed for this huge mess.

NBC analysis shows that "more than a quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report refer to controversial interrogation techniques". This suggests that information extracted by torture formed the foundation for the official explanation for 911. And now the Pentagon want to execute the prisoners who provided that information, before they can have their day in a free and fair court!

Zelikow repeatedly insists that he did have concerns about prisoners being tortured for information, and boasts that he pressured the administration (unsuccessfully) to let him talk directly with the prisoners. He says he has always advocated bringing the prisoners involved to trail:

"I've been an advocate both inside and outside of the government of bringing these people to trial in every possible way. And perhaps a little bit due to my efforts, a couple of years ago the President decided that those people would be brought out of the black sites and brought to trial. And my hope is that when they are eventually brought to trial, we'll have a chance to gather more information, perhaps through a more adversarial process, and check on some of the assertions."

But this bit of damage control does not synch up very well with what Zelikow told the Annual Lecture, Houston Journal of International Law, on April 26, 2007. On that occasion, he insisted that "good intelligence can be gained by physically tormenting captives".

He said improved interrogation methods have been developed through "a process of painful trial and error"! He said it was " tempting for some local governments to let the Americans do the distasteful things that protect their people too." He called for such governments to abandon the rule of "traditional" law. And he argued in favour of "the quite defensible policy of renditions".

Now he's a hero of the resistance, doggedly pressuring the White House on torture??? Is this the same guy???