- Reaction score
- 5,481
- Points
- 1,260
E.R. Campbell said:I regard myself of something of a conservative civil libertarian; I like to think that I am a classical, 19th century liberal - someone who thinks John Stuart Mill got it just about right about 150 years ago and that there has not been much, useful, added since.*
I find myself attracted to much of Ignatieff's world-view as I understand it. (I am especially impressed with the ideas he brought out in his biography of Isaiah Berlin.) I share his belief in fundamental human rights for all - regardless of race, colour, creed and so on. I also understand his support for prosecuting the war against the Arab, extremist, fundamentalist Islamic movements which declared war on us.
If I like Ignatieff then I am 99.9% certain that a very, very large minority of the Liberal Party of Canada is going to thoroughly detest him if, Big IF, they ever find out what he thinks. That substantial minority - it may even be a majority - includes virtually the entire, still large and influential Trudeau wing of the party which has influence amongst both the Martinis and the Chrétienistas. The Trudeauites remain united in their blissful ignorance of history and economics and in their pursuit of the old, discredited, intellectually vacuous anti-capitalist policies. They, including John Godfrey, form the core of the knee-jerk anti-American wing of the party.
But we are going to have an election this winter so it is time for the gentlemen to get off the pitch and make room for the players and the Liberal Party of Canada players, as Mr. MacLeod has told us, are undeterred by anything as banal as ideas and intellect. They learned, back in the '60s and'70s that charisma tops brains, integrity, ideas and ability, all rolled together, every time. The guessing, I guess, is that Ignatieff has charisma - his reputation as a world famous Harvard scholar will satisfy the deep craving of a huge majority of Canadians to have whatever the Americans have. His ideas can be disguised or submerged into whatever bits of fluff the stenographers in the Canadian media take down, verbatim, fro the Liberal hacks and flacks and then pass on to us as 'news.' All that, of course, if the Québec Wing of the Liberal Party fails in its bid to retain the tradition of alternating French and English leaders - and despite the fact that Paul Martin Sr. entered the government as the Franco-Ontarian minister in King's cabinet, Montrealer Paul Martin Jr. is not French enough to count, no matter what the Manley team says.
It is no walk over for Ignatieff, I think. Too bad because he might, just might be the guy to rescue a once proud national institution from 40 years of rot and corruption which have made it more akin to the criminal mob than a political party.
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* I also think that modern political liberalism is a peculiarly English (not even British) construct which is rooted in the traditional values of several, but not all, North Western European cultures. It (English liberalism) borrowed heavily, for 1,000 years, from across the North Sea and then, in the 19th and 20th centuries found fertile ground in some European countries. Most of continental Europe, in my view, remains profoundly illiberal - the French and Italians and Spanish raise their clench fists and scream Liberation! but they rarely practice what they preach. European (mostly French) colonialism is responsible for most of what Fareeed Zakaria described (in Foreign Affairs in 1997 - later expanded into a book: The Future of Freedom) as illiberal democracy - see: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19971101faessay3809-p20/fareed-zakaria/the-rise-of-illiberal-democracy.html ).
Most quasi-democratic states (including, in my opinion, many in Europe, even in the European Union, itself) learned all the wrong socio-economic and political lessons from their colonial masters â “ some, even many mastered some of the forms of democracy, like elections, even free and fair elections, but they failed to grasp the functions: respect for laws, a belief in the supremacy of the rule of law, equality at law rather than (unattainable by humans) economic or social equality - which leads, inevitably, to Marxism and social, economic and political failure. I also believe that there are, in Asia, a few conservative democracies - which are possible in the very conservative Asian societies. I have no problems with liberal or conservative democracies â “ liberal democracies are better for liberal societies, conservative democracies are, probably, better for conservative societies. Illiberal democracies are neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring and, in so far as they reflect illiberal societies (Eastern Europe? the Balkans? the Middle East? West Asia?) then, perhaps they pose dangers to our values by disguising the real problems.
I appear to have been wrong. Ignatieff is not, after all, "the guy to rescue a once proud national institution from 40 years of rot and corruption".
According to this column by Don Martin, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, Price Michael has stumbled, badly:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/28/don-martin-liberals-look-at-ignatieff-and-see-john-turner-on-sedatives.aspx
Don Martin: Liberals look at Ignatieff and see John Turner on sedatives
September 28, 2009
Sagging in the polls with a outbreak of internecine bickering and a senior resignation in the party's Quebec flank, the real Liberal crisis of non-confidence seems targeted more at their party leader than the government they aim to defeat this Thursday.
What's worse, it was a Liberal ultimatum last June that forced Prime Minister Stephen Harper to produce Monday's gleeful report card on his government's stimulus package -- 148 pages of Tory-blue election-pamphlet-ready achievement fleshed out by robust graphics and upward arrows to show job growth and spending.
But despite the billions of alleged deficit spending and hints of a recovery highlighted in a report card demanded by the Liberals, Mr. Ignatieff raised his hara-kari blade three hours later to signal this is the moment to take a stab at an election increasingly seen as suicidal inside his party.
His non-confidence motion won't succeed, of course. The pretzel-principled New Democrats will bend over to support the Conservatives to spare Canada from an election the Liberals seem hopelessly unprepared to fight.
Besides, the report card offers precious little ammunition to engage an electoral battle. Sure, it's basic plagiarism from the earlier fiscal update and arguably more a compilation of press release announcements than actual construction blueprints.
There's also some proof the Conservatives will, by accident or design, fail to deliver on their intended spending spree. Hidden in the annex on the last page of the report card, the government admitted it could not spend a full third of the $3-billion it rammed through the House of Commons last March on the pretext of emergency cash for shovel-ready projects. If they can't spend $3 billion, how will they dump $27 billion out the door in a hurry?
But the underlying point is that most Canadians hunger for good news and Stephen Harper is feeding that appetite with this upbeat progress report, leaving Michael Ignatieff to fret and fume in gloom and doom about growing unemployment and the risk of continuing economic slippage.
For Liberals about to trigger another month of blackboard-scratching speculation about an election, there's also concern at how Mr. Ignatieff's leadership honeymoon ended with almost Dion-esque speed, setting him up as a frenzied-feeding target by one and all.
A senior party strategist noted that the Liberal advance team, seeking to highlight the government's alleged tardiness in spending stimulus money, had used the wrong field for an Ignatieff photo op last week, and that the park wasn't scheduled for construction until next year anyway. "In our rush to dump Stephane Dion, we have given ourselves John Turner," he sighed.
Ouch.
Even Mr. Ignatieff's own loyalists blame him for the mess in Quebec, where former justice minister Martin Cauchon was strong-armed out of a nomination bid so that Quebec lieutenant MP Denis Coderre could deliver the party banner uncontested to a female candidate.
The fury following that decision, featuring a public backlash from senior sidekick Bob Rae, forced Mr. Ignatieff to reverse the decision Monday, which sent loud and proud Denis Coderre, seeking maximum television exposure for his tantrum, to quit as the party's Quebec organizer.
But the pile-on goes beyond the Parliament Hill bubble.
Mr. Ignatieff will face evisceration on Rick Mercer Reports tonight in a spoof on his new television commercial. With Ignatieff talking up environmental issues before a forested background, a charging grizzly bear bowls over the leader before a graphic appears declaring: The Liberal Party of Canada: Playing dead. Ouch again.
He can't even escape ridicule in his overseas stomping grounds. Last weekend The Observer took some nasty swipes at the former broadcaster, who paused in London for an interview during one of his summer vanishing acts. Writer Rachel Cooke beautifully dissects the pale persona she encountered.
He's no longer the flamboyant intellect familiar to British readers and television viewer, she laments. "His tone . . . is slow, excessively careful and completely without irony, none of which would be surprising were he a career politician. Ignatieff used to be a writer. Listening to him now, it's as if he's been sedated, or body-snatched, or something. He's like a jazz man who's lost his sense of rhythm."
Smugly surveying this twitching Liberal body is Mr. Harper, the one party leader with public opinion at his back who fervently wishes the non-confidence motion would succeed and send Canada to the polls immediately.
He can't be seen inducing its defeat, but he'll do nothing to prolong his government's survival. That sets up a tricky fall full of scrambling opposition leaders trying to prop up a Conservative government that doesn't want to be saved.
National Post
dmartin@nationalpost.com
I wish I had said ”pretzel-principled New Democrats”!
But, to Martin’s main point, that Prince Michael has failed his leadership test: yes, indeed. Can he survive and, eventually, be "the guy to rescue a once proud national institution from 40 years of rot and corruption"? Maybe, but it is a lot harder than it was on Sunday.