Recent praise and criticism of Gough Whitlam evoke two American leaders who, like Whitlam, won office as messiahs of hope and change. John Kennedy, and his ‘Camelot’ of 1961, has entered mythology for Democrats. Barack Obama, broadly welcomed as a messiah in 2008, now disappoints, even for the left.
It should be possible to admire Whitlam yet see his limits, as now with Obama.
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Ross Terrill accompanied Whitlam to China in 1971 and his book 800,000,000 was Kissinger’s recommended reading to Nixon on his trip there in 1972.
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