JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL IGNATIEFF IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

The genuine issue is not ex-pats as this piece by Ignatieff would have us believe.

Indeed, the claim is a pretty putrid way to excuse your own failings.

It is self-damning when you think about it: “Gee, I didn’t do anything wrong, I was just this wonderful cosmopolitan guy attacked by horrid little people!”

Please, the unexamined life is not worth living, and Ignatieff surely has not spent five minutes examining his own, else he would never write such tripe.

You cannot, anywhere in the world, expect to return from a great long period abroad and assume leadership of a great national party almost immediately.

The very idea is preposterous.

In politics, you earn your credentials, a thoroughly appropriate demand for what is the art of the practical.

Ignatieff spent no time earning his “creds.”

And, really, and I say this as a genuinely (small “l”) liberal-minded person, Ignatieff displayed pure arrogance in thinking he could do otherwise.

And, with this column, he is only demonstrating again that he “just does not get it.”

Pretty damning stuff for a highly educated man.

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“Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian.

“In every sense of the word.”

Michael Ignatieff is a drip.

In every sense of the word.

Being a Canadian drip doesn’t make any difference.

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“Mr Harper’s constant attacks on Mr Ignatieff for his time outside of Canada reflects [sic] insularity and insecurity.”

A totally false argument.

Insularity is an issue only in the mind of Michael Ignatieff, busy spinning tales to comfort himself about his utter failure.

Ignatieff was an incompetent politician. Full stop.

He also, as one reader has correctly remarked, proved to have an unappealing personality.

Writers often have unpleasant or underdeveloped personalities: after all, they spend most of their working hours alone with a keyboard or a tablet of paper, almost the polar opposite of what politicians do, glad-handing people as soon as they’re in high school.

He also lacked the largeness of spirit of the great Liberal prime ministers: he is a surprisingly conservative and unimaginative man, considering his education and travel.

Had it been otherwise, Harper’s nasty ads would have been ignored as background noise. After all, Canadians have not embraced Harper, a man of extreme views and unethical behavior, Canada’s first genuinely creepy leader, with a meager 39.6% mandate. They only avoided the unpleasant and incompetent and almost buffoonish Ignatieff.

Ignatieff has none of the fierce intelligence and drive of a Trudeau and none of the ineffable charm of a Chretien.

He showed no judgment, time and time again, as dallying in France when Parliament was prorogued. The insiders of the party made a terrible mistake luring him back, and they soon knew it, desperately putting on silly stunts like Ignatieff’s “Ma and Pa Kettle’s Excellent Adventure Crossing Canada by Bus.”

Simply inane.

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“He has principles and stood up to serve.”

God, what complete puffery.

What principles of Ignatieff’s stand out?

I fail to see any beyond the most ordinary.

Stood to serve?

What an overly-dignified description for a man’s being offered and given leadership of a great party without doing anything to earn it.

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“…there is far more support for Mr Ignatieff then you want to believe.”

You are asserting nonsense in the face of those election results?

That is delusional.

And I wonder, had you heard the previous buzz among some in the party about Ignatieff?

Many observed that he trusted no one but his wife.

He tended to consult no one.

So tense had this situation become that we saw in some Wikileaks material that the American ambassador secretly commented on the bad blood between Ignatieff and Rae.

In the end, I count myself a pretty seasoned “reader” of people, and Ignatieff struck the wrong note with me immediately.

It had nothing to do with his having lived abroad. It had nothing to do with his education. It was just my reading of a politician who could not connect.

I never had any doubt he would lose and lose big.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PRESTON MANNING IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Political gravity has shifted in the country?

Harper through years of work has increased his support from about 30% to 39.6%.

Almost two-thirds of Canadians still reject this man and his party.

The only real lessons from the election are three.

One, we have a serious democratic deficit in Canada when less than 40% of votes turns into a majority.

Honest and conscientious men concerned with our affairs would work towards correcting the situation, not crow about it.

Two, dirty and unethical tactics do achieve some success in politics. The United States is rife with them. Now Harper has introduced them to Canada, debasing the decency of our politics.

As an interesting sidelight here, we get a hint here of how little a role religion – both Harper and Manning being religious – actually plays in genuine ethics.

Three, leadership matters, and the Liberals did not have any.

They appointed a weak man who missed almost every opportunity to respond forcefully to Harper’s half-truths, evasions, and outright dishonesty.

This weak man also sneered at a coalition which would have long ago stopped Harper, and he was inept enough to end up being accused of plotting to have one. Pathetic.
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“Preston just keeps looking better and younger every time his photo appears…”

Preston had a complete make-over at some point, maybe as part of his initiation as president and CEO of the one-man institute founded by himself.

Hair dyed.

Eyebrows skillfully dyed to match.

Dumped the granny glasses and fit-up with contact lens

New wardrobe.

Possibly a few needle-loads of botox.

Coaching on how to look at the camera without making people laugh at the results.

I do think he missed the chance to turn up the back collar of his jacket, a la 1959 rockers. That would be in keeping with his newly-learned smile, rather suggestive of an early Elvis snarl.

Bet with his self-appointed institute job he has a shiny car, maybe something sporty like a pink and black convertible.

The guy’s clearly now a regular chick-magnet.

But when he opens his mouth or takes his quill pen from the inkstand, we hear or read the same old crotchety noises.

What was it Obama said during the campaign about putting lipstick on a pig…?