The Associated Press and other media outlets are in a frenzy over a statement made by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's few and great friends in the world, about comments he made about the former pot smoking and cocaine snorting Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

Australia has troops in harms way in Iraq and the Prime Minister expressed displeasure over Senator Obama's "plan" to pull troops out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. The Prime Minister said that al Qaeda must be praying for Senator Obama's victory in the Presidential election of that year. Is that really such an outrageous assessment, who is al Qaeda going to be more afraid of, a President who would cut and run, or a leader who would fight and win?

To our good friend down under I would remind him that Senator Obama once said he considered using heroin too, the drug of choice of the truly stupid, and as he backed away from that bad idea so to might he back away from his time table to abandon 25 million people in crisis.