Former PM Malcolm Fraser is sad that people keep remembering the less than glorious aspects of his somnolent reign from 1975 to 1983.
Mid-week, Hal Colebatch flame-grilled the miserable old wannabe leftist Mal over his involvement in supporting Zimbabwean dictator and human rights abuser Robert Mugabe, who was arguably elected to office with less dishonesty and intrigue than Malcolm Fraser was.
Fraser fought back yesterday, defending his strong support for the tyrant, offering:
people forget that initially Mugabe started reasonably well.
Not so well for all the people butchered by his regime but the essence of Fraser's argument - and no doubt this reflects his beliefs - is that he was merely being "realistic" about the African situation.
He was similarly "realistic" about the sort of action he was willing to take to reform the then moribund Australian economy.
The only thing in which he was ever bold, breathtakingly so really, was in seizing his Party's leadership and using every form of manipulation and scheme to get himself appointed Prime Minister before going to the inconvenience of a ballot.
Now the reinvented lefty Malcolm is extremely bold on his own account when he asks people to forget how he got into office and how little good he did once in it.
No matter how many re-writes Fraser attempts, the past is cast. There's no going back. In an era where some of the great anti-communist and reforming heroes of public life were shaking up the world for the better: President Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, Fraser was no hero, but an absolute zero.
Game on.
since failed candidate 
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