Greg Sheridan, mad monk Tony Abbott, usable bomber Beazley and flip flop Latham

(Above: Tony Abbott).

Just when you thought Tony Abbott was a naughty boy, it turns out he's the messiah.

Don't trust me, trust Greg Sheridan. By golly, I can almost hear Rolf Harris strumming the lid on a can of paint. Trust Greg Sheridan, sure can.

Manifesto of a 'usable' leader is the header for his tract, and he doesn't leave you in any doubt as to where he stands right from the get go:

If Turnbull fails at the next election, Abbott should be the next alternative prime minister.

All this is based on Abbott's job application and intellectual CV calling card, his new book Battlelines, which as evoked by Sheridan seems singularly short on new ideas.

The USA will be around in 2020 as a force in the world? Well hornswoggle me and corral me with Nostradamus. A Liberal would defend the US-led operation in Iraq? Well hook my suspenders up to a battery and shock me with the insight.

Apart from the predictable banality of these ideas, Sheridan conjures up a strange "usability" test which somehow sees Kim Beazley as a usable leader.

Whenever John Howard or Andrew Peacock was opposition leader, the electorate felt it had a usable alternative, whatever damage the conflict between them did. That automatically made the Liberals a threat to Labor. Peacock did well in 1984, Howard came close in 1987, Peacock actually won the popular vote in 1990 and Howard won office in 1996. John Hewson was not usable as a leader, and the Liberals went backwards in 1993. Mark Latham was Labor's Hewson equivalent. Kim Beazley, on the other hand, was always a leader the electorate could have used. Beazley nearly won in 1998 and would have won without Tampa and September 11 in 2001. Rudd's achievement was to become usable by 2007.

What a pity nobody - especially the Australian electorate - wanted to buy a second hand B52 from Bomber Beazley, let alone hand over the keys to government. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. If that's Sheridan's idea of usability, I've got a second hand bicycle out in the back shed he can have for a knockdown price. Once he's knocked the rust off it, he can join Abbott in mad bouts of vegetarian cycling (I keed, I keed, it was Miranda the Devine who said Abbott looked like a vegetarian).

As for the other ideas in Abbott's book, Sheridan tells us that the book itself is good, and full of worthwhile ideas, and then proceeds to demolish the ideas that he mentions.

First there's East Timor:

Abbott understandably tries to make a myth out of Australia liberating East Timor. I say this is understandable because Labor makes a million myths, often wholly counter-factual, out of distorted history. But Abbott's argument about East Timor is built on a false premise. If he reads Howard's letter to then Indonesian president B.J. Habibie he will see that Canberra's policy was to favour East Timor's remaining part of Indonesia. Similarly, Howard would never have sent a peace-keeping mission to East Timor without Jakarta's permission.

And then after noting that Abbott prefers the USA over China - as if we'd prefer to live in a country where the intertubes are censored by the Communist party or their lick spittle lackey Stephen Conroy - he knocks over another Abbott conceit:

But Abbott's odd passages on what he calls the anglosphere are silly and sterile and lead nowhere in policy terms. He claims it's the cultural similarity of the anglosphere nations -- the US, Britain and Australia -- that bound them together in Iraq. This ignores the half of the anglosphere -- Canada, New Zealand and Ireland -- which opposed the Iraq action. Moreover, it automatically diminishes and somewhat insults non-anglosphere democratic allies such as Poland, who joined the combat in Iraq, and Japan and South Korea, who sent forces later.

Trying to stretch the anglosphere by including India is silly. No Indian would accept the term anglosphere as the primary geo-strategic locator of their country.

Well  it's dumb, but not so dumb as Abbott's idea of bringing fault back into divorce proceedings, a subject on which the commentariat has gone strangely quiet. But back to foreign policy:

This leads to a broader weakness in Abbott's foreign policy positions. His instincts are good. On the things he's thought about seriously, he is sure-footed. But there is a lack of a more systematic appreciation of Australia's strategic position. Most politicians don't really need this. But all our prime ministers since World WarII have come to office with a good deal of foreign policy experience. It's a great pity that Howard didn't make Abbott defence minister. But after Turnbull, and after the next election, Abbott remains the Liberals' only realistic alternative.

Well I guess that anybody who thinks Bomber Beazley was 'usable' - despite a series of losses - might well turn to the mad monk as a realistic alternative. But even using Sheridan's benumbing terminology, it becomes clear that Abbott is actually the Mark Latham of the Liberal party.

Remember when Mark Latham was publishing books and articles to establish himself as a forward thinking policy wonk? Until the heat in the kitchen got to him and the wok fractured in the heat?

Remember his erratic behavior and his destructive antics, which undermined himself and Beazley? 

How about Abbott publishing a book on all sorts of policy areas outside his shadow ministry at a time when Turnbull is down and almost out, and badly needs a united team? How about proposing the book is a handy reference point and calling card for his ambitions as leader once Turnbull's been thrashed at the next election? Wow, there's a happy, healthy knockdown optimism about big Mal's chances.

How about Abbott's sulk for the last eighteen months as he got over being beaten, and being demoted to what he sees as a minor set of portfolios?

Gee, come to think of it, you might even argue that Latham was a model of decorum and balance in comparison.

And now Greg Sheridan says he should be the next leader? Suddenly it feels like I should be buying a used car from Joe Hockey. It might be a lemon, it might not run, but at least I'd get the lack of service with a smile ...

(Below: Dr. Abbott tends Malcolm Turnbull's popularity figures. Oops).