Readers with long memories might recall the fleeting controversy about the time that a then freshly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stopped, propped and saluted a deeply unpopular US President George W. Bush during a grand global summit. It was a NATO meeting, April 2008, one of the early trips that earned Rudd the media moniker “Kevin 747” for his busy shuttle-style diplomacy. Bush, at the time, ranked as a factor causing 69 per cent of Australians “to have an unfavourable opinion of the United States”, according to the Lowy Institute Poll – a figure that even Donald Trump failed to top on becoming president in 2017.