Levers and pulleys of a flimsy fantasy machine

It’s all about perception, as they say, and in politics perception is truth.
But, as MacDonalds say, for a limited time only.

We were struck over the last few days by the sudden disappearance of what most were convinced was a terrifying, gargantuan, impenetrable, impervious monstrosity.

The heavier than lead, harder than granite monument of Speer-like dimensions to power, greed and fear, that was the Howard government has evaporated without leaving any trace but the faint and fading echoes of a few squeaking, frightened rodents as they scuttle away from the light of responsibility.

And now we are left, as if suddenly woken from a spell, blinking in the sunlight of possibilities we had forgotten how to dream of.

It began with the Apology, the Sorry that could “never” be said, when Brendan Nelson began the capitulation with his appalling speech which was, nevertheless, a capitulation. In fact he capitulated both to his party and to Kevin Rudd, and that was his problem.

Of all the living ex-Prime Ministers, only Howard was absent from Parliament House. And when we then saw him on his morning walk all we saw was a little, pathetic, weak and broken old man.

In the last week at least two of the once great and powerful who so arrogantly and righteously controlled our lives intimated that they would be leaving the ignominy of the backbenches.

On Monday night on 4 Corners we saw the remnants of the old liberal leadership ram the daggers into the back their ex-leader, who was already politically dead.

We were allowed to see the levers and pulleys of the flimsy fantasy machine they had used to hoodwink us all. And we could see clearly what weak fools they are, what fools they had been, how they had fooled us, and how they had been so comprehensively and easily intimidated and fooled by Howard.

And now on Tuesday:  WorkChoices – Howard’s ‘great legacy to the nation’, the legislation which, if it were rolled back by Labor, we were assured, would undo twelve years of ground-breaking and masterful industrial relations reforms leading to disaster, calamity and the end of the world – has been, as they report, unanimously, swiftly, quietly and ruthlessly killed off. It is as if it had never been. It has evaporated into nothingness along with every other thing the Howard government claimed it stood for.

And now, of course, there is nothing they do stand for. There is nothing left for them to stand for.

The complete repudiation of the Howard experiment by not only the people of Australia and the Labor Party but also unanimously by Howard’s own party is probably the most justified and satisfyingly comprehensive retribution in Australian political history against an unbelievably awful and corrosive man and his equally horrible fags¹. Howard’s legacy is nothing but a bitter, fading after-taste.

But for those straw-chewers from Deliverance country who revelled in hatred towards their fellow humans, in racism, in their piggy-squeals for the death penalty, because Howard gave them permission, what is left for them, now they no longer have permission? Onto whom can they now encrust themselves? Wilson Tuckey?

For an excellent analysis of the collision between narcissism and entitlement and the “death, decay and a not insubstantial stench” that the 4 Corners story stirred up, read Possum‘s insights here.

¹ which we mean, of course, in the Tom Brown’s School Days sense.