My first advice to US President Obama on his meeting with our Prime Minister Mr Rudd in Washington DC on March 24 is don’t say anything that you don’t want to read on the front page of the newspapers the next day.
Mr Rudd may want to speak to Mr Obama about some of his many ideas such as the Asia-Pacific Community or whether America is going to join up with Australia on an emissions trading scheme, or his war on binge drinking, or maybe he would like to talk about his war on obesity.
Mr Rudd has so much to talk about he could be there for days. But Mr Rudd will have to zip as he probably has other places to go, such as Swaziland or Brussels, to speak to the second ambassador of Lesotho.
I have a sinking feeling that it’s not going to be a meeting so much about what Mr Rudd has to tell President Obama but more a meeting of what Mr Obama will be telling Mr Rudd. I believe the meeting will start with the matter of troop commitments in Afghanistan.