THREE political leaders broke through Australia's summer haze. The first was Chris Christie, the second was Francois Hollande and the third was Tony Abbott.
Each managed it for different reasons, yet each in their own way was a reminder of what should be guiding principles for elected officials: keep your mind on the job; remember always why you were elected.
New Jersey Governor Christie, a charismatic figure once touted as a Republican candidate for the presidency, was brought undone because his staff engineered an almighty traffic jam to punish a political opponent.
Christie swears he didn't know they were going to do it. If true, he should have; if not, he is finito. Clearly a culture existed in his office, which he nurtured or tolerated, which let his senior staff believe it was acceptable to inconvenience thousands of commuters for cheap political payback.
It revived memories of last year's Australia Day, when the then press secretary to then prime minister Julia Gillard tried to embarrass Abbott by relaying something Abbott had not said and triggering a riot by Aborigines.
The French President has a quality not shared by most of his countryfolk - the personality of fibro - and is withering proof of Henry Kissinger's oft-quoted line that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Hollande, who seems to regard loyalty and commitment as traits befitting lesser mortals, say Anglos, would have better served his people if he had kept his focus above his zipper line, rather than devoting time and energy to mapping scooter routes around Paris to meet mistress No 2.
A roue loose on the rues of Paris, closely followed by security detail with fresh croissants to ensure all appetites are sated, is the stuff of Truffaut, not of a politician asking voters to trust him.
Abbott broke through for thankfully more mundane reasons, although the Christie example of what happens when staff run rampant is a sobering one.
Abbott was doing his job, and appeared to have spent his break thinking about it. Since the political year resumed, he has shown he is beginning to get the hang of it. Not completely, not always, but certainly better than before.
His speech in Davos set out an economic narrative for himself and the world. It succinctly, if sketchily, set out challenges and remedies. Detail will have to come later.
His speeches and performance on Australia Day were also good. As Governor-General, Quentin Bryce was always going to be a hard act to follow, but if anyone can do it, his man Peter Cosgrove can.
These were encouraging signs of a maturing Abbott, an impression marred when valid criticism of ABC reporting standards was subsumed by suggestions the national broadcaster should barrack for the home team. The last thing this or any government needs is media cheer squads.
However, we are talking about Abbott, who will never be the PM from central casting, 100 per cent well-behaved, 100 per cent of the time. The inner larrikin will break through occasionally, as he must, lest the contents explode like a malfunctioning pressure-cooker.
Abbott has also benefited from issues breaking his way. Some of it is luck, some of it is luck he has created or helped along.
One issue where the government has absolute control is asylum-seekers. Like it or not - and the Greens and Labor clearly hate it, even though no boats mean no drownings - the policies are working.
If Abbott shows the same unswerving commitment and passion to fixing the budget deficit without killing the economy as he has to stopping the boats, and as he will to improving the lot of indigenous people, then he will have a handsome record as Prime Minister.
It remains a big if. So much depends on Abbott and those around him, and whether they have the necessary policy and political expertise as well as the courage.
Abbott has not been truly tested yet on the economy. There are early signs that he is not the soft touch many thought he would be. Abbott as Prime Minister is not Abbott as opposition leader. As one of his colleagues said recently: "He can't be the Tony he was five months ago, or the Tony he was five years ago."
The Abbott of five months ago promised $16 million to one profitable multinational, Cadbury. The Abbott of last week refused $25m to another, SPC Ardmona, owned by Coca-Cola Amatil.
Cracking down on corporate welfare should give the government ammunition to tackle middle-class welfare, although with friends such as Kevin Andrews handing out $20m for marriage counselling, the moral and economic messages get mixed.
More damaging, the right decision on SPC has been undermined by a sloppy sales job. Making the right decision is not enough. It has to be for the right reasons, fully and accurately explained to people and participants.
Sharman Stone, the local Liberal member, has been tempted to take her margin of 19.6 per cent, resign from the Liberal Party tomorrow and sit as an independent. If she thought it would buy leverage, she would do it.
Instead, she has undercut Abbott, who brought it on himself partly by overstating the impact of the union award on SPC's difficulties. Hearing the cabinet decision first from a journalist only blackened Stone's mood.
Stone has been loud and abusive. She will not stop and they can't make her. She is not alone in her disquiet about Abbott's drying-out. "You can be pure and you can also be dead," one cabinet minister observed a few days ago.
As Eric Abetz has made abundantly clear, the government is getting tough on business to get tough on unions but, if it is to succeed, it has to get all its facts right, all the time. There is no margin for error. Just ask the ABC.
The government should have stuck to the simple message of no more handouts for profitable multinationals. It already had the gift of corruption allegations against the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, which has tightly wedged Bill Shorten.
The Opposition Leader's hostility to further probes of union corruption will prove painful and costly.
He had the chance to plot a different course. He could have done what Paul Howes did yesterday - give qualified support and appeal to everyone to surrender their weapons.
Shorten will ultimately regret he didn't, even if polls now show otherwise.