Ask what Clive Palmer can do for the JFK Library

Cameron Stewart reports in The Australian, yesterday:

Clive Palmer has told liquidators he needs to be in the US next month, two days before a compulsory court hearing in Australia, to host a dinner for former US president Barack Obama — but that is news to the JFK Library, which will hold the gala event.

Clive really, really loves JFK. Troy Bramston in The Australian, May 28, 2014:

The Australian can reveal that Mr Palmer has donated $US4,466,865 — nearly $5 million — to the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation since 2000. But unlike some of his other philanthropic pledges, which are ­alleged to have not been delivered in full — such as $100m for medical ­research in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and $6m for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards — Mr Palmer has kept his commitments to the Kennedys.

In fact he loves JFK a bit too much ... Courier Mail, November 12, 2013:

The billionaire — who has previously been caught out pinching the Liberal Party policy platform and accused of closely copying an old Nationals logo — amused attendees in Canberra today with his anecdote about communist revolutionary Karl Marx ... But his colourful yarn had much in common with a story told by Kennedy in 1961 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, where he addressed the American Newspaper Publishers Association.

But the Kennedys don’t love Clive. The Australian, yesterday:

A (JFK) library spokeswoman told The Australian the function would not be hosted by Mr Palmer but by John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline.

She said that while Mr Palmer was one of 42 directors of the library’s foundation, he would play no formal role on the night.

Clive should have penned a JFK poem as awesome as his one about Gandhi, Dreams, Hopes and Reflections by F. Clive Palmer, 1981:

Gandhi I know you / Though I was not born / Gandhi I love you / Though your life was torn.

So off to court Clive goes. The Australian, yesterday:

The Federal Court has ordered Mr Palmer to attend a hearing on May 9 into the collapse of his company Queensland Nickel with debts of about $300 million and the loss of about 800 jobs.

Don’t be upset, Clive. The Kennedys ain’t what they used to be. The Boston Globe, Saturday:

They’re trying to stage a family comeback for one of the most famous names in politics at a time when voters just rejected political elites, and as dynasties on the political left and right crumbled. History has not been kind to the descendants of the founding brothers of the Kennedy clan ... when it comes to ascending to statewide office, to the Senate or a governorship.

One guy who’s not flying off to the US anytime soon is former PM Tony Abbott. On Canberra’s 2CC radio, yesterday:

I’ve still got some years in the parliament. I’ve signed up for this term of the parliament and may well sign up to go around again.

Is Tony taking his inspiration from Margaret Thatcher? BBC News, May 11, 1987:

I hope to go on and on ...

Malcolm Turnbull wishes Tony would take his inspiration from the Moody Blues. Go Now, November 13, 1964:

Go now, go now, go now.