SYDNEY -- With the Sydney 2000 Olympics in full swing, the country is getting used to having 3.5 billion TV viewers around the world watching our every move. This city's 4 million citizens are positively basking in the glory of staging the world's best Games yet. And to the south, Melbourne is just as proud of hosting a pivotal World Economic Forum.
Call us naive, but few here expected to see the world's media reporting not only the triumphs of the two biggest current events in international business and sports, but also a couple of the most embarrassing sideshows ever to rain on our parades -- for instance, the protests that marred the World Economic Forum.
In the light of the Battle of Seattle at last year's World Trade Organization fiasco, it was inevitable that the professional protesters, those self-proclaimed champions of the poor, should descend en masse on Melbourne. Yet not even the well-drilled police anticipated the dedication with which the protesters provoked and resisted baton charges.