Fair enough, Martin English (and Mo Stoogers) - as NHJ!'s resident democratic umpy Hamish A points out, we PM-bashers can get a tad hot under the collar with our language, sometimes. Mea Culpa, mates - yet again. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea dickhead...sigh.

But...fair suck of the sav too, guys: as MK points out below your review, Mart, if you were actually to...er...read the book, you'd (hopefully) see that a reasonable slab of it is (somewhat painfully) devoted to acknowledging explicitly our own 'Howard-obsessive' faults and foibles, agreeing that we can't lay claim to any infallible moral supremacy - in the spirit of the book's core aim, which was and remains the same as that of this site: to help search out some common ground 'for all of us'. To whit:

From me (p. 69 - and if you think this was an easy concession for me to extend in print to me dear old pappy, Mart, think again!!): 'For the first time in ages, Dad and I started talking properly: about family history, about politics then and now, about the point I'd planned to make with my version of his brother's death. That's how we discovered that we occupy more common ground that we'd both realised, even though he's long been a (qualified) admirer of John Howard's story of Australia, while I'm a frustrated idealist, Republican, 'war on terror' sceptic and enduring fan of Paul Keating. We've certainly had our fierce arguments over the years, but sorting out the truth about his brother's death reminded us both that there are also two sides to contemporary political stories.'

And from Antony Loewenstein (p. 259): 'But I claim no special rights or knowledge about what's needed in the Middle East simply because of my background, education, friends, family or religion. The Hanan Ashrawi affair has made me question my motivations throughout it and my place within it. Being Jewish explained my initial interest, but as the months have passed, I have come to see that my involvement was driven by much more - by a desire to respect and embrace the totality of the person my parents taught me to be, not simply the traditions and superficial clothing of Judaism. Question authority. Challenge established power. Seek out the truth.'

Or, starting from the opposite political polarity, from Harry Heidelberg (p. 360): 'While the beginning was inauspicious and predictable, the course of the next four years was less so. The [Webdiary] conversation became a political journey where certainties were questioned and sometimes overturned. Out of a new ambiguity I found unexpected common ground with a diverse group of Australians . Together we were able to distil the values that really mattered.'

And most of all from Margo Kingston. From p.127: 'Like Pauline Hanson before him, Len Harris had long been shunned in Parliament House - by all of us. No-one had wanted to talk to Len, the last lingering symbol of the evil One Nation. Yet, as the years went by and emotions settled, I'd come to regret being part of that 'isolate Hanson' crowd. It was a terrible journalistic mistake, not to mention a human one. I wish I'd listened to her. Engaged with her opinions, as I'd just done with Len. So much heat goes out of everything when people of differing views simply sit down and talk.'

From p. 294: 'What about smug progressives like me? When Hanson first arrived on the scene I was among the many who thought that if the media ignored her, her scream would soon die out. Next, we overreacted to her growing popularity, helping stoke bitter divisions over issues such as race and immigration - the ones that would drive the Marrickville alternative dispute resolution officer and her sister apart - while ignoring what lay behind the scream as wilfully as the conservatives. These were mistakes I still regret today...'

From p. 408. 'That's been the true underlying impulse of this book. It's not really 'about' the current Prime Minister. I wanted to argue the case for Australian Citizenship, and his government and corporate cronies seem determined to make meaningful Australian Citizenship impossible.'

And from p. 409: 'I don't think that I've got all, or even many, of the answers. The whole point of being a Citizen in our Australian democracy is that we've all got the same democratic rights and the same democratic obligations, and we're all no better and no worse than the next Citizen. So these ideas are just some of ours. No doubt you've got your own - probably quite different ones from mine.'

And etc. And etc. And etc. You can believe it or not, Martin (or Mo), but we all did bust a gut as an 'ensemble' to resist as much as possible the 'knee-jerk' anti-JH temptations inherent in the book's overall premise. See also, for example, Harry's explicit disclaimer on p. 377 (my bold):

'Postscript: this chapter wouldn't have remained in NHJ! without Margo letting me include a 'disclaimer'. As the Liberal voter in this book, I found the focus of the cover and the title on John Howard totally partisan, and not a reflection of the search for a common ground. It's my view that most of the concerns raised in the book will still be present long after John Howard leaves office, so the presence of my writing is a compromise. But I don't believe it's token; Margo wanted the chapter because it represented the shared values we have searched for in the Webdiary. I remain a Liberal strongly committed to the ideas conveyed in the chapter, and my hope remains for an Ever More Democratic Australia.'

Martin (or Mo), find me a 'pro-Howard' writer or journalist - or publisher, for that matter - who would allow a Phillip Adamish or Bob Ellisian contributor to bung that kind of contrarian eye-popper into a conservative 'anti-Latham' book (just say), and I'll find you a non-APS Ministerial Advisor who keeps a meticulous written record of every chat he has with DPM&C.

But viz. Hamish's riff on matters gun control, your demand for a bit of perspective is a fair cop and your conversational wish is our conversational command - so perhaps as one of the gobbiest 'JH-hating' contributors to the NHJ! site I might note some of the things I genuinely admire about our PM, too:

- I reckon he'd be quite fun to have a few beers and a night up the Cross with (personally I don't buy that 'dull suburban accountant' exterior for a second);
- he's clearly a terrific dad and a movingly loving husband (which makes his inability to concede the same qualities in desperate asylum-seekers or gay couples all the more indefensible, mind you);
- I admired at the time the stoic way he endured certain of the nastier personal attacks he copped from some Libs in the 80's, back when it was unfashionable to be 'dry' and 'anti-PC'. Not that I don't fervently wish it were still unfashionable to be both...but you do have to give a nod to any swimmer against the political tide - until the tide turns, that is, as it long has. (Despite what he and his media fans still routinely claim, after 8 years in Executive power and a near total eclipsing of Keating's 'social agenda', to suggest that JH is somehow still a cultural 'underdog' battling bravely against the 'metropolitan-elitist juggernaut' would be hilarious if it didn't remain such a devastatingly-effective - and in my view, as a born-and-bred smalltown 'hick' myself, sickeningly-condescending - rural-stump evasion tactic. See Martin's link to JH's Gunnedah reception; frankly, Martin, on this current matter I don't care if anyone from my own Mallee scrub birthplace does think I've long become an 'elitist urban tosser' since leaving: surely not trying hard to explain why you think it's unforgivable just how basely the PM lied to us all about 'kids overboard' - witness the smug, self-serving 'let's move on' line the PM instead sprinkled about like so much bloody chook food, by the way - is in my view infinitely, infinitely more patronising and contemptuous of such Gunnedah-esque constituencies than at least having a tentative go at starting up a give-and-take conversation on the matter. Fine, as you say, we anti-Howardistas are often our own worst enemies, but these days we only have to look sideways at JH on certain issues and we get howled down as sanctimonious moralisers by his louder backers, yeah? Oh look, I've prob'ly gone and put me bloody foot in it again here, too...and I'm s'posed to be praising the guy. Sigh.);
- only an Australian bum could hate a bloke who loves lazing around on his bum watching sport as much as JH does;
- having said that, I'm 25 years younger than the PM and I wish - and I mean no disrespect to NHJ'!s groovingly-bitchin' publisher Big Bobby Sessions here, by-the-by - but...damn!, I wish I had the discipline and grit to get up and go for an energetic toddle around the Harbour every morning, like clockwork; (oh yeah, and give up smoking, too);
- I thought his public speechifying in the immediate wake of both 9/11 and Bali represented fine unifying national leadership;
- unlike many of his PH colleagues over his 30-year career, he's obviously never been in it for the dough. The temporary flash house, on-tap Grange and big plasma telly, maybe; but never the fatness of his own private wallet. (Just glancing around at some of the aging Labor grubs still pulling a hefty public pension even as they rake in the filthies from their 'mates' in the private sector - and given the thoroughly-deserved wallop NHJ! gives 'Honest John' on the Big Party-Big Money donocracy front - I s'pose his personal fiscal probity deserves a tad more credit than we critics usually extend...tho' let's see where he bobs up after he's retired, too...).

Faint praise, Martin and Mo? Damned straight - I'd be a hypocrite if it were much more than that. Through my eyes, stacked hard up against his good bits now are just too, too many awful bits to ignore. On balance I think JWH's been a nasty, damaging, divisive, cynical political opportunist for most of his career. (I also suspect that relatively few of his many enthusiastic supporters, like those in that Gunnedah crowd, will sing his praises quite as fulsomely, or for very long, once it's all finally over.)

But...do I 'hate' JWH, Martin English or Mo the Stooger? Nope. To hate John Winston Howard the man would be no more justified or meaningful than hating Australia the nation. I just hate much of what he's done, and so helped Australia - which means 'all of us' - do, or temporarily become, on his democratic watch. As you (and Harry H's disclaimer) rightly say, that's the more uncomfortable truth underlying Margo's book.

It's also the greater challenge to be faced by every Australian - including John Howard the private Citizen - once he does finally relinquish our national leadership. For all of us, as it were.