Aussies Vote Labor

John Howard's Liberal (Note: That's the name, but they are ideologically Conservative) party was voted out Saturday, at something like a 53-46 margin. Labor, headed by Kevin Rudd, is expected to get over 80 seats in the 150 seat lower house of Parliament.

Rob Griffith / AP

Without having followed the elections, it appears from my brief reading that John Howard was brought down by something similar to an "Abramoff scandal", as well as some employment policies that shifted a lot of power away from labor and towards employers.

It sounds like some Australians are taking quarrel with some lefty American bloggers citing Howard's close friendship with Bush as being a big factor in this election, suggesting that Americans need to get over ourselves. As such, I shall avoid making any such observations.

Tangential question, from the msnbc article cited above: Why do news agencies insist on referring to situations like this as "a humiliating defeat"? The Liberals still got 46% of the votes. It's just that more voters wanted them out than wanted them in. This is the nature of politics, and it's not clear to me why that should be considered humiliating. (I mention this even though from what news I've heard about JH, I'm quite pleased that his party got the boot.)