JOHN O’SULLIVAN notes the importance of the Australian elections, and how little attention they’ve gotten in the U.S. media. It’s also worth reading in conjunction with this post. “Al Qaeda has received a serious setback, Kofi Annan a rebuke, France and Germany a disappointment — and the media elites a slap in the face so stinging that outside Australia Howard’s victory has been a non-story.” As O’Sullivan notes, though, his defeat would have been treated as big news, freighted with deep political significance.