In his penetrating study "Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights," international affairs scholar James Peck observes, "In the history of human rights, the worst atrocities are always committed by somebody else, never us" - whoever "us" is.

Almost any moment in history yields innumerable illustrations. Let's keep to the past few weeks.

Former prime minister John Howard has joined an exclusive group of 24 living people to be honoured by the Queen with the Order of Merit.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and Foreign Minister Bob Carr all sang from the same hymn sheet this week on the continuing legal saga of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. But they chose their words very carefully.

Events of the past week have solidified the suspicion that neither Gillard nor Abbott is a true leader of real stature.

The past eight days laid bare the greatest fears of the leaders of both Australia's main political parties.

Friends and teachers of the daughter of an expelled Syrian diplomat are trying to bring her back to Australia to complete her education, after she was thrown out of the country last night.

The 17-year-old has spent the past four years at Canberra schools and was just months from completing her year 12 certificate and International Baccalaureate.

The Pope has broken his silence on the Vatican leaks scandal, expressing his anger at the way some parts of the media are covering the story.

Pope Benedict XVI said "exaggerated" and "gratuitous" reports were painting a false image of the Holy See.

A series of leaks has revealed allegations of corruption, mismanagement and internal conflicts.

The Pope's butler has been charged with illegally obtaining private papal documents and memos.

Paolo Gabriele, who lives with his wife and children in a Vatican flat, where a stash of confidential documents was allegedly discovered, has pledged "full co-operation" with the investigation.

Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged.

The Thomson affair is a spectacle that damages our democracy.

Talkback radio suggests we are growing tired. We might have had our fill of the hunt for a while. We're weakening and becoming vaguely compassionate. Time to draw breath.

Imagine this scenario.

You are the leader of an opposition party in a thriving medium-sized democracy.

The party's doing swell in the polls. So swell, it's tipped to romp it in at the next election to the sound of a few brass bands playing.

You've got a formidable work ethic, a Rhodes scholarship and three photogenic daughters.

You're also great at sport and not afraid to demonstrate this prowess to your country's sports loving populace.

There's just one issue.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told a Coalition party meeting he has no illusions about how hard it will be to win the next election after today's Newspoll, which gave Labor a small bounce.

Telling colleagues their job would not be over until the election was won, Mr Abbott observed: "Gillard won't lie down and die, and where there's life, there's fight."

Julia Gillard is once again the nation's preferred prime minister and her government has received a small boost, according to the poll.

In caucus today, Ms Gillard attempted to rally her troops, saying this was  ''the hardest political time'' for the government.

Detectives carrying out the multimillion-pound investigation into illegal newsgathering techniques at Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group have been asked to investigate whether it attempted to blackmail politicians.

The alleged plot centres on News International's apparent efforts to warn off MPs on a parliamentary committee from disproving its discredited defence that phone hacking was the work of a single "rogue reporter".

The fetid cloud of hypocrisy rising from our federal Parliament must surely by now be visible from space.

Strip away all the insincere grandstanding about due process and parliamentary standards and you get a government motivated by clinging to power and an opposition motivated by the burning desire to bring that government down, whatever it takes.