JOHN Howard has left Canberra but, being John Howard, he has not quit the political action - even as the riven and restive colleagues he left behind cannot seem to come to terms with his legacy, or decide who and what to be in his absence.
As the madness of Tuesday and Tuesday night stretched into the sourness of yesterday morning, the phone lines ran hot between the national capital and Howard's Sydney office.
Howard is, of course, master of the art of political executions: how to plot them, how to engineer them, and how to avoid them.
So with his hate-fuelled colleagues indulging themselves with open revolt during divisions in the Senate, with the unlikely Kevin Andrews hawking his leadership aspirations, with parliamentary secretaries resigning in order to act out their climate scepticism, Malcolm Turnbull picked up the Blackberry and phoned Howard to help define his course. The Opposition Leader called to seek the former prime minister's advice on process.
What were the precedents? Should there be a leadership spill and, if so, should it be a secret ballot or a show of hands?
Turnbull was not the only person to call Sydney during the course of yesterday morning.
Howard declined to be interviewed by The Age last night but, through a spokesman, he confirmed that "a number of colleagues" had sought his advice during the day.
Turnbull had used an early morning radio interview to try to head off any challenge. Colleagues had him on toast for eight hours the day before, and surely enough was enough. The party had to make a decision and "get over it", the Opposition Leader said with his characteristic diplomacy.
But with the psychology of the day moving against him, Turnbull changed course. He used the only flimsy advantage he had: tactical agility.
The meeting to decide the fate of his leadership would now proceed. There would be a secret ballot to allow the strength of his leadership to be tested. The day then shifted from strange to outright surreal.
At the entrance to the House of Representatives, Andrews strode forth to declare himself up for the task of leading the Liberal Party.
Immediately undercutting his bold declaration, and underscoring the flimsy nature of the challenge, Andrews then promptly confessed that he was following an unprecedented strategy: he wanted to be leader but he hadn't crunched the numbers and he had not been canvassing his colleagues.
Andrews' confused claims to the leadership included pique, revenge for high-handedness, a sense that Turnbull was way ahead of the party membership on, well … everything - and that human beings had nothing to do with climate change.
At exactly the same time, in the heart of the building, Turnbull was indulging himself with the fiction of control. He stood composed alongside Kevin Rudd at a function marking White Ribbon Day, with deputy Julie Bishop at his side.
Speaking of Bishop, in other quarters the principal plotters against Turnbull - West Australian backbenchers Wilson Tuckey and Dennis Jensen, the Greek chorus forcing the leadership issue - worked out that they had a small problem.
The, in truth, rather large, problem appeared to be the distinct lack of a candidate to take down Turnbull, Andrews-the-stalking-horse notwithstanding.
But there was another problem.
The leadership motion the two had composed in a fit of blazing anger against Turnbull's "I'm the leader - like it or lump it" performance the night before, inadvertently pushed Bishop, a WA colleague, out of her job.
This was, to put it mildly, an unintended consequence of their insurrection. The motion needed to be redrafted to make it clear that Bishop was safe in her slot.
At lunch time, the Liberal Party considered its collective insanity for 20 whole minutes. Turnbull and Bishop prevailed … but only for now.
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