SYDNEY -- The world's two most powerful leaders stopped by in Canberra the other day. It was a neighborly visit, all smiles and trade deals. They're home in Washington and Beijing now, leaving behind the biggest bonanza for Australia since Japan came calling a generation or so ago.
So bountiful a bonanza, in fact, that if beaming Prime Minister John Howard does not call a national election soon to capitalize on the goodwill earned -- he has plenty of reasons, what with his reforms wasting away in a hostile Senate -- he is not the wily politician everyone knows him to be.
Today he and indeed every thinking Australian are basking in a comforting afterglow. Washington has reinforced Canberra's regional security outlook, bolstered defense preparedness, and fast-tracked a free trade agreement.