Sometimes the old tools just don’t work any more. After years of sterling service they get rusty, worn and ineffective.

It’s now clear that John Howard needs a new toolkit. He needs to put away his dog whistle, his climate change hammer and his Bush megaphone and find a new set of tools for the big jobs that need to be done in 2007.

The Prime Minister’s absurd and embarrassing attack on US presidential hopeful Barack Obama yesterday is evidence that the Bush megaphone should be locked away in the toolshed at The Lodge. To understand the arch stupidity of his remarks – that an Obama presidency would be a “victory for the terrorists” in Iraq – just imagine Howard’s own response if a notable foreign political opponent made derogatory comments about the PM or one of his colleagues in the heat of an Australian election campaign. He would be justifiably outraged.

The good news for his party is that Howard seems to have discarded the climate change hammer, and uses the dog whistle only for especially difficult situations. But his stumbling performance in mis-hearing an important question in Parliament last week (which took hours to correct), and his politically misguided missile attack on Obama, make it obvious to any political handyman that if he sticks with his old tools John Howard is in imminent danger of becoming yesterday’s man. Today.