The great US columnist Charles Krauthammer once noted this truth about contemporary political life in America: ‘To understand the workings of American politics you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.’ Now of course Krauthammer was using ‘Liberal’ in its US sense, meaning a lefty, progressive type which as recently as the John Howard days differed from the more old-fashioned, classical Australian sense of the word – though these days ‘lefty, progressive’ probably covers half the Liberal MPs in Canberra (and all of the Black Hand gang, most State Lib MPs,...