TIM BLAIR has more on the Australian elections, where blaming the government for terrorist attacks seems to have played badly with the electorate.

UPDATE: In the comments to Tim’s post, a compelling reason to be glad that the Aussies are still on our side: “Speaking from experience with the stuff, all vegemite is weaponized.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Aussie blogger Arthur Chrenkoff weighs in — and somewhat splits the difference — on a question that has divided the two Tims:

This seems to be a classical case of “heads I win, tails you lose”; if Howard had lost the election it would have been a referendum on Iraq; but since he won, the election was obviously about other issues. This is quite reminiscent of the media spin of the European Parliament election results a few months ago – it seems that the war in Iraq simply cannot be shown as anything other than an electoral liability. . . .

Sections of the media and the punditry, together with the rabid left (mostly associated with the Greens) had tried to make Iraq the issue of the campaign. For that small but vocal section of the Australian electorate the election was always going to be the referendum on Iraq – hence the unprecedented attempt to attack John Howard in his own seat of Bennelong. Neither the government nor the Labor opposition would however much oblige, preferring to campaign largely on domestic “bread and butter” issues. This is not to say that Iraq and the war on terror were absent from the campaign altogether: the voters were from the start given a clear choice on these issues. According to Labor, the war in Iraq was wrong and it made us more of a terrorist target. Hence we should pull out our troops by Christmas and concentrate on fighting the war on terror in our region, in cooperation with our Asian neighbors. According to Liberals, the war in Iraq was right and our troops should stay until their mission is accomplished. As for the war on terror, we shall fight it wherever we can, in Indonesia by all means, but in the Middle East too, if necessary.

Voters were quite aware of this choice, and to the extent that the people had voted for the complete policy package, the Liberal foreign policy option has clearly proven to be the preferred one. From that point of view, the pro-war position was victorious on Saturday. But it’s also clear that the issue of whom to trust to manage Australia’s booming A$800 billion economy had also played on voters’ minds, particularly in marginal seats, which are experiencing large housing growth and are therefore more receptive to concerns about the interest rates.

If the issue of Iraq did not seem to have been on the forefront of the Australian election campaign, it’s because by contrast with the US presidential campaign it wasn’t there to anywhere near the same degree. But the reasons it didn’t need to be as prominent is that the voters have already had three years in which to acquaint themselves with the Liberal and the Labor positions.

So there it is, in a “nuanced” package. With regard to the U.S. media, it’s quite clear that his first paragraph is the operative one, though. And given the fate of those taking the Michael Moore line (see the first link, above) I think that efforts to take the war out of the election seem like spin to me.