PM Howard has gone down, Down Under. And not just by a hair’s breadth. Thus far the defeat is being called “humiliating” and “embarrassing,” but if Howard winds up losing his own seat, odds of which seem even, other harsher adjectives will be pressed into service: “mortifying,” “ass-reddening” — and yes, even “Santorumesque.”

But there’s a silver lining for the White House: no one apparently sees this rout as linked to Howard’s buddies-for-life relationship with the President.

For instance, the Post slugs the story: “Bush Ally Howard Defeated in Australia,” and the Times downplays the connection with “Ally of Bush is Defeated in Australia.”

We were kidding about the silver lining, of course.

At this point, with one year to go in Bush’s Presidency, all clouds have 100% pitch-black linings: every major ally, all four of them, successively retired by voting populations looking for a lot less Bush in their lives.

And that’s not even counting Poland.

The new Labor Prime Minister in Australia will spend his first days in office signing on to the Kyoto Protocol, removing Australian troops from Iraq, and engaging with his Chinese counterparts in their native Mandarin.

Krikey.

So let’s all raise our glasses one final time to the Coalition of the Willing: to Aznar of Spain; to Berlusconi of Italy; to the disgraced Howard; and to kamikazee statesman Tony Blair, who threw away the most promising career of any politician of the last two hundred years.

You, gentlemen, provided the international fig-leaf for Bush’s overt unilateral aggression, and you each deserved precisely the drubbings you received. May your roast beef always taste of ashes, and your wine carry the faint acrid tinge of white phosphorus.

God’s blessings on none of you.