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CANBERRA - He may not leap tall buildings at a single bound, but Australia's man of steel can dump the world's most powerful leader into the street.
Former Prime Minister John Howard, given his ferrous nickname by soon-to-be-former US President George W. Bush, has bumped incoming President Barack Obama from the White House's exclusive guest house.
The Washington Post reported that Obama had asked to move into the 119-room Blair House early, to enable his children to begin their school year.
But Bush had invited his old Aussie buddy to stay instead, to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Bush will award the medal for Howard's support during the Iraq War, when Australia, with Britain, was the only US ally to sign up for the invasion.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will also receive the medal, but turned down the invitation to stay at Blair House.
The London Times said Blair had preferred to stay elsewhere because he did not want to be "the man who bumped Obama". He will stay at the British Embassy instead.
Not so John Howard, who will sleep at Blair House on January 12, the night before Bush presents the medal.
The Washington Post said this meant Obama and his family could not move in until January 15, five days before his inauguration.
In the meantime he will stay at the Hay-Adams, a nearby top-drawer hotel.
Although the Australian media has quoted a spokesman for Howard as saying the former Prime Minister would have been unaware Obama had wanted an early stay at Blair House, American bloggers are furious.
AAP reported that Bush has been flayed, with one of 142 comments on the New York Times blog The Caucus complaining: "George couldn't make this idiot stay at the Hay-Adams?"
"What makes it worse is that this [Bush] Administration is once again going out of its way to [do] little favours for their friends at everyone else's detriment," another said on the Watergate Summer site.
But Bush and Howard did have some supporters. Jack Moss, head of the MacRanger Show on Blog Talk Radio, believed Obama should wait in line like "ordinary folk".
"Obama has done diddly squat for the country, as opposed to John Howard, who supported the US and our efforts on the war on terror," Moss wrote.
