Howard and the contemplation of the banality of closure

I followed with bemusement and incredulity the interview with John Howard in the BBC program, Hardtalk, conducted recently by Stephen Sackur on 30th October 2009.
The usual stubborn narrow argumentation, the old heroes firmly installed in their high thrones-Tatcher and Bush that is- all details about the Tampa we ever got were all wrong, ( he knew all the truths we did not know), the international and possibly UN committees... unreliable as ever and never to be trusted, apologies to those who must not be named... why one should apologize for something someone has never done...

It was amazing for a woman as naive as I am, to see this aged man, not a gentleman , that it not the word he inspires in me, more arrogant than ever, of a new arrogance in fact, one that constricts within a total closure of feelings and understanding. Like the dry hardness of cold stones that no moss nor colour of any kind will ever soffuse in light. Total dimness, obtuseness of immobility that obstructs your step, breaks your run.

It was a contemplation of oldness, of immutability, of near incommunicability.
It came back to me what Hannah Arendt means by political thought, in the words of Margaret Canovan:

Her work is political thought in the sense of representing the free play of an individual mind around politics, making sense of political events and placing them within an unfolding understanding of all that comes within that minds range.

M.Canovan The Political Thought of Hannah Arendt ( N.Y. and London: Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, 1974) 2-3

In this sense I understood completely and clearly now, that John Howard was never a politician, but just a conservative.