With the former prime minister's memoir going on sale next week, Mr Howard has said Mr Costello is an elitist who lacked the ability to connect with ordinary Australians.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/howard-unleashes-elitist-costello-blew-his-chance-at-power-20101021-16w4p.html?autostart=1

"Indeed on the many occasions I was with him in the public sphere I thought he was fantastic with the Australian public."

In the book, Mr Howard claims his treasurer's handling of an agreement made in 1994 to hand over the leadership was "inept", and that his white-anting of Mr Howard through the media was the work of a "rank amateur".

While Senator Minchin would not comment directly on the characterisations, he said he was "disappointed that the relationship between John Howard and Mr Costello had deteriorated" during 2006 and 2007.

As finance minister for six years, Senator Minchin said he worked closely with Mr Costello and had "enormously high regard" for his abilities.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/howards-costello-blast-unfair-says-minchin-20101022-16ww2.html?autostart=1

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Gus: unlike Minchin, I though both of them, Costello and Howard, were annoyingly Liberal (conservative) and bad at their job... Minchin was the pits too...

PETER COSTELLO says John Howard appears incapable of taking responsibility for losing government and his seat, in his toughest public attack on his former leader.

The former prime minister has opened a new war by criticising his former deputy in his memoir. Mr Costello told the Herald: "It's a self-serving account … he appears to be incapable of taking responsibility for the defeat of the government and for losing his seat of Bennelong.

"There's no point in trying to blame other people. He was the leader. He was responsible."

By claiming that Mr Costello mishandled a planned leadership transition and branding him "elitist'', Mr Howard has revived and escalated their long-running rivalry.

This could damage the legacy of the Howard years and interfere with the efforts of the Liberal leader, Tony Abbott, to keep scrutiny on the Labor government.

Last week Mr Abbott urged a meeting of Coalition MPs to "make the government the issue''. Mr Howard's attack has made the Liberal Party the issue, even as federal MPs return to Canberra for Parliament on Monday.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/howard-is-a-sore-loser-costello-20101022-16xwm.html

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Gus: Rattus was always one to pit people against each other, to gain advantage. He reminds me of these clever puny dorks in the schoolyard who manipulate the bullies to fight each other and leave him alone — unless he aligns himself with the stronger group, while creating "discord" within that same group in order to stay top dog while being the top rat. Creating "discord" is the ultimate gift of the cunning weak... The Germans call this ability to create chaos "zwietracht saën"... And the little Rattus takes pleasure in creating chaos — even in his own ranks. One can see he smirks at the pleasure of the niggle.... Even now, after having been sent to pasture, he reminds the world he still exists, hence the title of his memoirs "Lazarus Rising"... a soufflé full of contempt and enjoyable bile to sow discord to the max. Of course who else would publish extract of this nasty clever right-wing garbled gas-bag garbage?... Mr Murdoch's "The Australian" of course...:

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IN his memoir, John Howard says it was "inconceivable" that Australia would not back the US in Iraq.

He accuses former Labor leaders Kevin Rudd, Kim Beazley and Simon Crean of hedging their bets on the war.

"I had a contempt for Labor's position," Mr Howard writes in Lazarus Rising.

The former Liberal prime minister charges the Labor Party with lacking conviction, hiding behind the UN and outsourcing its foreign policy to the Russians and French on the Security Council.

Laying this charge, he writes: "The political debate in Australia was not between the Coalition arguing that a military operation was justified against the Labor Party asserting it could never be justified but rather about the precise circumstances in which it would be justified."

He says Mr Crean made it clear Labor would support Australia's involvement if a further Security Council resolution were obtained.

Evidently, Mr Howard writes, it was wrong of him to rely upon the US alliance but "it was in order to allow the caprice of a Security Council vote by the Russians and the French to determine the policy of the Australian Labor Party".

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/john-howards-contempt-for-labor-over-iraq-war/story-e6frfkvr-1225942540337#ixzz137re69XC
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Gus: of course the Rattus was allowing the caprice of a deranged US president to dictate "his" own agenda, although he suggest it was to keep away the "caprice" of "a" United Nations. Going to war on a whim and a BIG LIE took the cake. As one can observe his cunning and framing of the argument, he dismisses the very astute French, German and Russian assessment of the Saddam situation as a "caprice"... CUNning idioT (I am forcing myself to remain polite — a Freudian slip is not out of the question here)!!!!. The French, the Germans knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction AND SO DID YOU, YOU LITTLE RATBAG!!!... but you, Ratbag Rattus lied to the Australian nation about it. You should be facing a war crime tribunal with Blair and Bush. Like them, you are a war criminal.

PETER COSTELLO has painted John Howard as a disingenuous, dishonest and selfish man who put himself before the nation and was now blaming everyone for his failures.

In a stinging reply to Mr Howard's autobiography, entitled Lazarus Rising, Mr Costello writes that Mr Howard wanted to claim all the achievements of the Coalition government ''and does not intend to share the glory''.

''He will not take responsibility for the defeat of the government in November 2007 or losing the seat of Bennelong,'' he writes in today's Herald. ''He will not take responsibility for what the whole of Australia knows. That he stayed too long.''

http://www.smh.com.au/national/howard-dishonest-and-selfish-says-costello-20101026-172f7.html?autostart=1

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The title of his book is designed to hide the obvious truth. This Lazarus is not rising. This Lazarus was terminated by the voters of Bennelong in 2007.

How Howard was going to lead his party to victory when he could not hold his own seat is a question of great mystery.

Now for the first time he "reveals" he intended to stand down as Liberal leader in December 2006 but was prevented from doing so - mainly by me, but also by his colleagues and then by Kevin Rudd and lastly by his own family.

So if you want to know who caused all this catastrophe it is Peter Costello. John Howard was responsible for everything except his own retirement which was all the fault of … well, you know the story by now.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/failure-in-2007-was-all-howards-doing-20101026-172aw.html