I will be very interested to see how history treats the Rodent. We have not seen his like before - repudiated at the polls and, with astonishing speed and thoroughness, by his own party. It makes you wonder what held them together for so long.

I will always think of him as a politician who plumbed the depths and brought out the worst in Australians - all the meanness and spite which bubbled up on his watch was truly shameful. Perhaps East Timor and his response to Port Arthur will enable him to morph into something less reviled one day, but without a cheer squad on either side of politics it could be a long time coming.

Like him or hate him at least Mr Howard has always been consistent in his beliefs. Mr Rudd who promised to manage the economy, continue to support private schooling, do something constructive with the aboriginal issues is looking a lot more left leaning already. Already symbols are replacing any substance and Ms Gillard's philosophies are becoming evident. At last Mr Rudd has maintained his promise on not recognizing same sex marriage. How long he will take to bow to the lefties who knows. I hope he proves me wrong.

Few of us will be around in 50 years I have little doubt the short man will not be treated well by history.
He will be remembered as a bloke who both had too much confidence in himself and far too little for his opponents.
As a man who thought more of himself than his party.
And a man who crawled to the worst leader the united states of America ever had or will have.
Enjoy America John you continue to give me great joy.

No, JCa, I think Howard won’t stoop to Fraser’s level, or Whitlam’s, Keating’s & Hawke’s for that matter – who post-leadership cried treaty & sorry re the Aborigines but never did it themselves in all that time they had. What were they doing the when they had the chance? (Well Hawke was busy dismantling the unions, & as former ACTU boss, that’s funny, so him we can forgive)

All the other suggestions you raise, I suggest you go do them. The left was born to do that sort of stuff. Trouble is, so few of them actually do it. Put your laptop on stand-by & you do something about Aboriginal health care by living in an Aboriginal outback community etc. That’s if JCa could be bothered.

KGB,
It never ceases to amaze me how those who were in a position to change the situation relentlessly criticize those who did improve the situation despite round-the-clock interference of the former.
John Howard did achieve a lot of good for this country. Admittely, as the left keeps reminding us of, a lot of the wealth came from natural resources but, is the Rudd outfit going to stop mining to prove it can run an economy better than the Howard gang ?

The Rodent achieved one 'good' thing. He gave the pendulum such an abrupt swing to the right that its swing back in the other direction can only have been hastened.