Many thanks to the author for shining a light onto a little-known issue and demonstrating that it is not as simple as I had thought.

That John Winston Howard is without honour, I have never doubted. Just what this particular so-called honour represents, I now know to be unsavory. It would be interesting to know, but of course we never will, what the majority of his fellow awardees think of the new boy.

The Republican referendum was defeated because people were generally ambivalent about a Republic and Australians are loathed to make changes when the implications are not well understood. What a Republic would mean for the average Australian was never explained other than in symbolic terms.

Using the failures of Republicanism to back up one's argument for hating Howard is a little lame particularly when our great republicans, the Labor Party, would give their eye teeth to be associated with the young Royals right now. Talk of a Republic from the Labor Party is mere political rhetoric which will eventually be dropped as Will and Kate become increasingly popular.

I normally enjoy your articles Bruce, but ,honestly, This one is total rubbish Bruce.

Historically, objectively, it almost amounts to a rewriting of History.

You get confused over your selective examples of History.. Russian ( yes French was the Court language there) but Prussia is the State you are discussing.

Pilots , like Goring, got the Blue Max, but so to did Rommel. He got his fighting the Italians in the Alps.

In fact , in WW1 the Blue Max was more the equivelant (officers only ) to the British V.C. ,not the order of Merit.

Describing "Bertie" as brainless , by Prince Albert ,could be a statement imposed by many Fathers on their teenage children. ( How old was "Bertie" when his daddy died, Bruce ?).

Overall, your Article was all too "Cute"

It merely demonstrated your dislike for Howard, The Monarchy and all they have represented in the past.I was brought up to believe that one respects the past but moves on and lives in the present.

Before, you jump to conclusions, I also support a Republican Australia, but for entirely different reasons from you. To achieve that, I DON"T believe that History has to be rewritten or People , past or present have to be belittled.

Being bitter,twisted or angry will not make Australia a Republic any faster nor will it disappear John Howard from History

The results of the republican referendum poll was overwhelmingly backed by Liberal party voters, Howards electorate of Bennelong had the highest vote for a republic. An obvious portent of his eventual humiliating dumping in disgrace some years later. It was Labor voters that demanded an elected president that the conniving Howard never allowed, because he and the other monarchist confederates new a straight question on, DO YOU WANT A REPUBLIC, would have romped home, just as it would if it were called today.
Most people believe it was Turnbull that lost the referendum, in his refusal to listen to advice from all and sundry that Howard would sabotage it. JUST AS HE TRIED TO SABOTAGE THE NATIONAL ANTHEM REFERENDUM, years before with his Waltzing Matilda dity, but this time in a position of power he succeeded!
Along with his sleazy pomie side kick Tony Abbott the constitutional monarchist leader, with his DON'T TRUST A POLITICIANS REPUBLIC CHANT.
Good advice Abbott, those that remember will never trust you as a politician, ever!
Howard's award is for toadyism, it is a foreign award and is worthless in the eyes of Australians, it is probably siting in his draw right now and will most certainly not ever see daylight again, apart from the rare lunar right gatherings of the corrupted and gullible.
All Australian children should take note, that you can sell out to the greedy 1%, the multi-national corporations and other foreign entities, impose the worst working conditions in a century and receive with out doubt the worst humiliation in Australian history, despised by a vast majority of Australians and all you will get for it is a "Toady medal" the "ORDER OF THE TOADY" to place in a draw in the bedroom, Howard you are a disgrace to Australia, always were and always will be!

Yawn - another article designed to prove that Prime Minister Howard is a bad man. We've come to expect this sort of stuff from Bruce Haigh, of course. That's why he writes for Melbourne's 'The Age', known to most of us as the Green-Left Daily. I look forward to Bruce's commentary on the shambles that is the Brown-Gillard government.