John Howard's view of Kevin Rudd

From The Herald Sun today, on what John Howard says of Kevin Rudd:
"The absolutely dishonest and pathetic attempt by Mr (Wayne) Swan and Mr (Lindsay) Tanner and Mr Rudd to ... demonstrate to the Australian people that they had inherited an economic mess from the former coalition, that they had inherited high inflation and runaway spending, they have no shame," he said.

To be fair to John Howard, the signs of economic prosperity were present during his government. Now, whether this is due to his "brilliant economic management" or due to prevailing world economic condition is another thing. The fact is that world economy is now beginning to undergo a downturn, and coincidentally at the time when Kevin Rudd took over. Kevin needs to do what is right now to put Australia in a stronger position.

To be fair to Kevin Rudd, his government did inherit a lot of things that needed changing (Workchoices, for one) in order to tackle the challenges of an economic downturn. To call it a "mess" or to simply call it "necessary changes" is subjective; call it what you will, but something different must be done. Again, to be fair to Kevin, he did inherit high inflation and big spending which were not used on building infratructure. To continue Howard's policies will lead to ever increasing foreign debt and, God forbid, eventual bankruptcy.

In my opinion, Howard should retire in grace and let Kevin do his job. For goodness sake, someone please give John Howard a medal or a title because I think that's what he's really after: a pat on the back.