The great tragedy for John Howard, now on his Defending My Record tour of the USA, is that increasingly he is the very picture of one hand clapping.

It’s not just that the Rudd Government has turned against the most cherished principals of Howardism — that was to be expected. The real repudiation is that the central tenets of Howard belief — IR revolution, the apology, Kyoto, culture wars — have also been abandoned by his own party. 

What strength of character and determined belief — for 11 years it seems the political dialogue of an entire country was bent to the ideas and prejudices of just one man. Amazing.