The fall

Bugger and blast. I was celebrating so hard at Howard's defeat that I've lost the memory of the last few hours, including the concession speech.

Howard's legacy is being reassessed downward with considerable alacrity, but it still hasn't met my evaluation; which is that he was small, mean, and vindictive, with a philosophy that went no further than striking out at everybody who'd been critical of him when he was down - universities, unions, the ABC, aborigines, foreigners. He did his best to damage things like Australian universities, the Australian environment, and Australian movies because he hated the people who advocated for them.

He was fairly successful over a number of years because Australia is also as a nation mean and vindictive. I don't think you could say he ever deceived us, except where we went out of our way to be deceived. He never pretended to be remotely nice.