Tonite's "sedate" bash is in Sydney, at the Westin Hotel. Don't forget those chequebooks. Or, if you're one of the government's discarded souls, hang around in back with cupped hands.

Apologists for John Howard's decade of corruption, incompetence and crimes against humanity are well represented in the media these days. Today's entries include Gerard Henderson and John Carroll of LaTrobe University.

Henderson, who grows smaller in stature with every passing day, defended the indefensible on Fran Kelly's Radio National breakfast show. Like many coached or inspired by Howard, he has perfected Little Johnny's interrupting "Well, well, well," with each "well" rising in pitch to insure the interviewer shuts the fuck up. No matter what heinous moment Kelly brought up in the drab little fascist's ten-year Reich, Henderson was there to give it a positive spin.

In The Age, John Carroll concluded his article with: "John Howard may well be remembered for his virtuosity at the craft of politics. It will be a pity if that overshadows his contribution to the nation's wellbeing."

Come again? And again and again and again?

Next door on the opinion page to the assessment by John "Sorry, I just blew in from a decade on Mars" Carroll, is Kenneth Davidson's rather more cogent summing up. It's a must read, but here are a few excerpts:

"The task of nation-building has been handed over to haute finance because the political process has been corrupted. Politicians are terrified that if they put the public interest ahead of private financial interests they will be branded financially and economically irresponsible.

"The politics of division is a race to the bottom. Now Costello and others are seeking to play the race card, albeit sotto voce, for political advantage. Which politician is prepared to make the obvious point that the best long-term breeding ground for fundamentalism is fundamentalist schools, or military adventures that serve no real national purpose but cause collateral damage to social solidarity by inflaming ethnic tensions? This provides the excuse for government to suppress dissent with anti-democratic anti-terrorism and sedition laws that isolate "them" further and could even promote the terrorism they ostensibly attempt to prevent."

Meanwhile Peter "Hey, what about me?" Costello is making a fool of himself on all fronts. Even Greg Sheridan, Australia's foremost armchair general, is gagging at Costello's recent attempts to reposition himself from being to the left of Howard to becoming "über Howard" in rousing the racist rabble. Quoth Sheridan:

"Costello's foolish, gratuitous, undisciplined, and slyly offensive comments about Muslims in his windy speech on citizenship last week may well signal a change in the way he intends to pursue the prime ministership in the future.

"For the past 10 years he has tried to differentiate himself from Howard on the Left: Costello the republican, Costello the supporter of reconciliation, Costello the champion of a tolerant society. He ran as Howard lite, Howard minus, the little Howard.

"Now it seems he is going to differentiate himself from Howard on the Right. He will presumably now become the uber Howard, Howard plus, the meta Howard.

"The bigger disappointment about Costello is just how lazy and shallow his thinking is whenever he's not speaking from a Treasury script.

"An alternative view of Costello in the business community is that he's been a lucky Treasurer and a lazy Treasurer, a high-taxing, high spending Treasurer with a modest reform record. That he is prepared to play around so irresponsibly on race and religion to further his leadership ambitions represents his most pitiful moment in politics."

Let's not forget Alexandre Le Downier, Howard's imperious Minister for Ministerial Ignorance. After weeks of pleading ignorance of the AWB kickbacks, evidence was suddenly found indicating that he'd read cables suggesting impropriety way back in 2000. To which he replied, "Of course I'd have read them." Are we stupid? Just because he's denied knowing anything before doesn't mean that by admitting now that he's known something all along that he is in any way mendacious or less than an honourable member of the obviously squeaky clean Howard Government. He simply didn't believe there was any truth to the cables in question. If so, why should he bother to investigate? When some upstart Opposition MP shouted, "But that's your job, you idiot!" Monsieur Le Downier took great umbrage. "How dare you impugn my integrity as Australia's leading obfuscator and pompous twit. I know when to turn a blind eye to dodgy business deals when it's in the corporate national interest. Low-life scum!"

To celebrate his invincibility, the renowned Karaoke chanteur and cross-dresser plans to entertain the conservative throng tonight at the Westin Hotel with his scintillating rendition of "It ain't me, babe."