If there was any doubt this was a serious national security issue, we
only needed to examine the props our politicians dragged out to greet
the media yesterday. We counted five Australian flags on
prominent display: both John Howard and Kim Beazley flanked themselves
with the national standard – but the most shameless use of the national
symbol goes to Morris Iemma, Carl Scully and Ken Moroney, whose press
conference was backlit by the flag.

While our political leaders were getting jiggy with the flag, others
were disengaging their brains from their mouths. For Ron Boswell,
the fallout from the terror raids were as plain as the elbow on your
face. Critics of the PM have “got egg all over their face from head to
toe,” he brayed. Matt Price thought this was “magnificently mangled.”

Democrats leader Lyn Allison had no such excuse for her shameless cry
of political conspiracy: “I suppose it’s not beyond the
possibility that he (Mr Howard) would say to the state police
commissioners: ‘Well, you know, is there not a raid that could be a
taking place at this time to justify it?’ ”

They were clearly impromptu comments – we’re yet to see a follow-up media release on the terror raids from the Democrats.