John Chuckman

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS

 

“Trudeau snubs Munk, Maclean’s/Citytv debates but will attend commission debates

“Liberal leader willing to do TVA debate if parties can agree on date”

 

There is a reference here to Trudeau as a “formidable debater.”

I don’t know because I didn’t see the debates for the last election.

But if there is any truth in the claim, it would tend to show only how little that is useful may be revealed in debates.

In politics, it is a genuine and repeated phenomenon to have people who know how to run for office and then prove incapable of actually running the office.

We’ve seen that happen a number of times, both in Canada and the United States.

So, if it is accurate that Trudeau is a “formidable debater,” it only gives us another example of that phenomenon because he has absolutely proved himself to be anything but a formidable national leader. He has been weak and indecisive, even slightly ridiculous at times.

But I tend to doubt the debating claim. Trudeau has always been decidedly unimpressive in the House of Commons. Apart from a relatively poor speaking voice, his command of facts and figures has never been impressive. And he is given to flaccid and unimpressive generalizations.

The NDP’s Thomas Mulcair was ferociously effective in the House of Commons, attacking Harper in his later days, making him squirm the way a great criminal lawyer is able to do with witnesses or the accused at a trial. Trudeau’s voice was absolutely feeble by comparison. He was simply unimpressive.

If Mulcair did not win those election debates, it is likely only because he held back, thinking that attacking what was then a new boyish face in politics – and one bearing the almost sacred name, Trudeau – might look bad.

If so, it was a serious error.

Unfortunately, in the upcoming election Canadians have a very bleak choice. All three major parties are offering quite unappetizing, cold leftovers for a big social occasion.

There is no good alternative to the proven-inept and subservient Justin Trudeau. Such, not infrequently is the unhappy reality of Western “democracies.”

Just look at the last national election in the United States. What a choice. Two figures from Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.

And just look at the bleak prospects the Democrats have lined up for the next one – now that they’ve effectively dropped their only interesting candidate, Tulsi Gabbard – to oppose America’s first certifiably lunatic President.

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Response to a comment about Trudeau refusing to participate in events not influenced by biased media:

I’m not trying to defend Trudeau. I certainly do not support, or even like, him.

But as to your comment about his not being willing to appear in debates “not manipulated by a biased media,” what can I say?

Maclean’s magazine? You are kidding? I’ve read it many times in a waiting room. Its bias is palpable.

The Munk organization functions much like an American think tank. Its output and the events it hosts are quite biased and show little genuine independent thinking. Mostly, they are not even interesting.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Well stated, my feelings exactly about Bob Rae.

It is important to emphasize that the Harper Conservatives are, and will remain, a minority party.

It is only this set of circumstances that have let them rule – not the appeal of their leader, not any clever strategies, and not the support of most Canadians.

This tells us we suffer a tremendous democratic deficit under our current system.

One could hope a government that mouths stuff about democracy would bring in reform, but we know that isn’t going to happen.

One can only conclude that either a coalition or the effective death of one of the liberal (small “l”) parties will end Harper’s ugly efforts to abolish Canada in favor of the body politic of Texas.

We remain in as much of mess as when the insiders of the Liberals gave the party’s leadership, as though it were private property, to that arrogant political nincompoop, Ignatieff, insuring that the Liberals could not come back.
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“It was Chrétien that disabled the Liberal party. he was just as tyrannical as Harper is and set the stage for the Harper method of operation.”

Chretien was a magical politician.

Only Rae even comes close.

He had a charming public persona, and he was tough in private.

I can’t imagine how else a politician could be so successful.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Quebec is not leaving Confederation.

There is not the tiniest bit of evidence for saying that.

So why do people keep saying it?

Because it’s such an emotionally charged statement it gets people’s attention, quickly.

Ergo, Ignatieff pathetic comments: words from a man who has proven, over and over, he is not all that perceptive, and a man who sure wants attention.

The man spent most of his life writing books – and as any good professional writer will tell you – that is a lonely business. Indeed Graham Greene wrote of the writer having a splinter of ice in his heart.

Further still, writing books is not necessarily the same thing as either having genuine new ideas or of being a perceptive analyst of current affairs.

The Toronto Liberal Party insiders who lured Ignatieff back to Canada with the promise of his leading the Party never understood these facts.

And, clearly, Ignatieff did not understand them either. He does not truly know even himself.

He has proved a remarkably unperceptive and narrow academic with little ability to relate to society.

It is only natural that Margaret Wente would choose to defend his empty observations. That’s the kind of thing she specializes in.

After all, they are pretty well cut from the same cloth, only Wente has no academic standing.

Two streams of humid air blowing against the realities and subtleties of their time.
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“Get off it Cons, Iggy is not really anti-Canadian in any sense. It is only your stupidity (based on Harper’s 15 sec. talking points) that makes it seem so in your own minds only.”

That would be a laughable comment were it not so sad.

You totally confuse the Right Wing with critics of Ignatieff.

Sorry, but there are many, many genuinely liberal-minded people in this world who do not think well of Ignatieff.

Indeed, there is a strong argument for consigning Ignatieff to the softer wing of the neo-conservatives.

His record during his time at Harvard is quite unpleasant, including, of course, writing in support of our generation’s biggest war crime, the invasion of Iraq, which killed about a million people, destroyed a promising society for a generation, and left about 2 million refugees. He also supported “torture-lite.”

Ignatieff has never qualified as a genuine liberal. He is a special interest man, and his aura of being a significant voice in human rights is just that an aura. His record is a poor one if you scrutinize the details.

Ms Wente’s entire background in writing of world affairs reflects the neo-con position, from endless apologies for Israel’s savagery to her almost putrid embrace of the same invasion of Iraq.

Again, here is a near-demented Ms Wente some years ago on all that death and destruction in Iraq:

http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-iraq-wars-trashiest-piece-of-propaganda/
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“He is entitled to his opinion, but its clear he was never a great choice for Liberal leader.”

But he never was a choice, was he, in the sense of the word choice we assume in a democracy?

He was parachuted into the role by a group of Party bosses.

Just as he was parachuted into his West End riding when he first showed up on stage playing his return-of-the-native act.

Now, what kind of a principled politician, or would-be politician in this case – principled in democratic and human values – accepts such gifts from a group of insiders?

To answer the question is to summarize Ignatieff’s credentials as a principled politician.
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“To be honest, in travelling across Canada, I have found far more of a sense of separation and even hostility in Western Canada. I have rarely heard from a Quebecker the kind of vitriol towards other Canadians as some of the comments/attitudes I’ ve encountered In B.C. & Alberta in recent years.”

Well said.

Your observation confirms my own over some years.

I’ve never heard such genuine low-life comments as I’ve heard in Alberta.

Stephen Harper serves as a kind of bellows blowing on hot coals in this matter.

Wente’s ignorance here is little short of phenomenal, exceeded only by the man of proven poor judgment she’s defending.

Again, here’s what a woman of genuine perceptive intelligence – one of Canada’s best political columnists – has to say:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1167952–michael-ignatieff-s-bbc-comments-on-shaky-ground?bn=1
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The following two postings are mine from the original column by Michael Ignatieff:

Please, go away, boring man.

You were a complete flop as a political leader.

And in your previous efforts to get some attention in the Globe, you’ve demonstrated less-than-Sterling abilities as an idea man.

Indeed, it was your poor judgment and blind ambition which are responsible for the Harper’s licence to act against much of what Canada has represented in my adult lifetime.

Now, you play the old “look out for Quebec” card.

Tiresome and inaccurate.
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“This is what this guy does best. Babble. Of course in their little world he is known as a deep thinker.”

His reputation as a thinker is immensely overblown, as all thoughtful people came to understand from most of what has come out of his mouth since accepting as an inheritance, as it were, the promise of leadership of the Liberal Party.

I cannot believe how trivial and unperceptive he has proven himself.

But, then, he did support criminal invasion and torture when still doing his blubbering in the United States, didn’t he?

Globe, you do readers no service giving this guy free space for advertising himself.

Indeed, there is almost a touch of black comedy here with a man proven to be so out of touch, and not just concerning Canada, still coming back repeatedly to offer views and advice.

The term “idiot-savant” comes to mind here, but I’m not so sure about the “savant’ half of the phrase.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Yes, Mulcair, despite his flaws, was the right choice for the New Democratic Party.

A forceful and intelligent man who will take none of Harper’s crap.

It’s too bad about Bob Rae, a very eloquent and able politician. I admire his skillfulness.

Had the Liberals chosen him, as they should have done, instead of the ineffective, bumbling, repulsive Ignatieff, we would not be in the national mess we are in.

Yes, Rae had some residual disadvantages in parts of Ontario – “Rae Days,” which actually were the carefully considered and least harmful option of a thoughtful politician during an economic crisis – but the total impact could not compare to the horror Ignatieff has dropped on us.
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“They are opportunists both, leading their respective parties down a path to power that involves turning their backs on long time supporters to appear more broad based.”

Sorry, despite my personal wishes otherwise, all politicians are opportunists.

All, without exception.

Being an opportunist is part of the job description for the “art of the possible.”

What is to be condemned is not opportunists in politics per se but opportunists who avail themselves of nasty political situations that were better avoided.

Harper is an opportunist that has used every scrap of tackiness and ignorance and abuse to stitch up a situation for himself.

He’s not to be condemned simply as an opportunist but as an utterly dark and unethical man.
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Surely we are working our way towards something of a two-party system.

Parties change over time with new economic and social realities. They come into and go out of existence. They are not as enduring as the stonework of Parliament.

There was some recognition of new realities when the NDP, under the beloved leadership of Jack Layton, signed on with the Liberals under the very decent Dion – the BQ offering support but not taking membership – to stop Harper a few years back.

Canada, as a whole, is a majority progressive country, but that progressive vote is divided several ways – a reality that allowed the opportunity for Harper to achieve power.

But the entire spectrum has shifted somewhat to the right, as we are faced with a more uncertain future and big economic problems.

Conservatives of years ago were thoroughly decent and respectable people, having given us a number of worthy federal and provincial leaders.

But today’s Conservative Party is extreme and undemocratic and dishonest in its tactics, also lacking in respect for others – quite an ugly creature that cannot possibly in our lifetimes rule without the passive consent of Canada’s majority.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Exactly.

But that is because they are not accurately called Conservatives.

Harper’s party is a Northern affiliate of the Republican Right, which also is not in any way a genuine conservative party.

It is the party of the imperial establishment, full stop.

Whatever Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” wants, it gets.

Whatever measures represent traditional, responsible conservatism are irrelevant.
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“conservatives are actually on point — starve the beast.
they won’t admit to it, but that is their true calling.”

Wrong.

That is what they like to pretend they are doing.

In effect, they are spending irresponsible amounts of money on new matters.

How is the F-35, a gulag of new prisons, a pointless war in Afghanistan, and a host of other measures starving anything?
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“They? They great unwashed majority that does not agree with you? They?”

How do you know the majority?

And how do you know it is unwashed?

Are you Canada’s preeminent secret pollster?

Of course you are not.

Expressions like yours are simply a display of the same kind of ignorant arrogance we see from Harper regularly.

Or from the shabby likes of Newt Gingrich.
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Harper is just a far less garrulous and amusing version of Newt Gingrich, albeit wearing a red-and-white tuque instead of being wrapped in Old Glory.

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“How about ADSCAM, where did that money go…?”

Simply pathetic.

Harper’s thugs stand in contempt of Parliament, in violation of all principles of an open society, and now in violation of our election laws.

In sum, Harper has pissed on our democratic values.

The Adscam business involved a genuine effort to preserve the country’s integrity, an effort abused by a small number.

There’s no comparison – none.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY NEIL REYNOLDS IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Never has it been the mission of the NDP to “eradicate capitalism,” whatever that portentous phrase is supposed to mean.

Neil Reynolds here displays his ignorance or prejudice, and perhaps both. Certainly he presents a straw-man argument, feeble as virtually all his mental meanderings are.

The NDP is typical of the kind of social democratic parties that we’ve seen in Europe for many decades: parties committed to easing the huge disparities which just naturally arise under the powerful operations of unregulated capitalism.

Capitalism – in the likely case that Neil Reynolds doesn’t understand the meaning of the word – involves the accumulation and concentration of capital in private hands.

It is from this concentration that we get the great investments which make our society richer in material goods over the long term.

Communist societies long ago proved that you dismantle this mechanism at your peril.

But the mechanism is so ruthlessly efficient in pure economic terms that large numbers of less able competitors are left with little, including what humane people regard as basic services.

All genuine social democratic parties represent is sufficient re-distribution through taxes to pay for social programs to prevent the natural outcome of raw, unregulated capitalism which is unarguably a tendency towards Dickensian England or the two-fisted ugliness of the Mafia.

Franklin Roosevelt’s government in the United States proved, for any who care to study it, that social democratic measures can actually work to preserve the basic dynamic mechanism capitalism in times of immense stress and impending revolution.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

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

Mr Ignatieff, here’s what I consider serious unfairness in our politics.

A few Liberal Party insiders go down to Harvard to lure a boring academic to return to Canada with the promise of likely leading the party about which he knew nothing.

The boring academic got parachuted into a riding about which he also knew nothing, and he refused to live in the riding, even though he once said that he would.

The boring academic made some speeches, in the course of pursuing the party’s leadership, undeserving of it as he was, with thoughtless statements ready-made for exploitation later by Conservatives in attack ads.

The boring academic later, after the political demise of the politician who beat him out for the leadership, accepts being parachuted into the party’s leadership without being tested by any meaningfully democratic process.

The boring academic proves a boring and genuinely inept political leader.

Every poll and gathering proves Liberals themselves do not like the boring academic, but he persists until he can lead the party to its degrading defeat.

And sure enough, the boring academic makes a dumb decision for an election which dooms Canadians to at least four years of Harper’s slash and burn.

After quitting in a rush and accepting a sinecure at the University of Toronto, the boring academic manages to pound out a boring article every once in a while to be published in the Globe and Mail.

Sound familiar, Mr Ignatieff?

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Rubbish.

Cute kitties in his lap didn’t work.

Neither did banging out pop songs on a piano.

So the dark bulk is trying to use hockey to make himself look human to Canadians.

But it won’t work. This man is an obsessive creature endlessly seeking new avenues to exert his power.

Nothing else matters to such a man.

He reminds me, as a personality type, of Martin Bormann, the terrifying eminence grise of the Third Reich.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

We are a poorer people today for the loss of this heroic and humane voice.

Jack Layton was simply an exceptional man, and that fact is what made him an exceptional politician.

Honesty, decency, and bravery are everywhere and always rare qualities, but Jack Layton displayed them many times.

They were combined with a sharp intelligence and a genuine conscience.

True heroism – that quality of holding gracefully to your purpose despite the odds and pain – is so rare: its true possessors require neither a uniform nor war.

Jack displayed it in so many parts of his life: from the announcement of his first cancer and promise to beat it and from his views on human waste of Afghanistan to the way he led an historic campaign despite sickness and to the graceful way he bowed out.

I certainly will not forget one of the most gifted politicians and most decent public men of my time.

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 JOHN IBBITSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

I do have a problem with “visions” generally, but, when someone has no legitimate right to be called a liberal, talks of the “liberal vision,” I can only laugh.

I cannot think of one evidence of Ignatieff’s having a genuinely liberal spirit.

Here are just some of the facts:

He does not speak out on any of the great issues of our day.

He didn’t subject himself to a democratic contest to gain his leadership job.

He provided the ammunition – his own foolish words at his first convention – for Harper attack ads against the extremely decent and thoughtful Mr Dion.

He came back to Canada rasping and blubbering on one occasion about how you cannot ever oppose America because they’ll make you pay.

Presumably that absolutely amoral advice applies even when what America engages in is mass murder, as it was in Iraq.

He was published and broadcast in the United States defending the mass murder in Iraq and accepting “mild” torture.

He has distinguished himself in nothing, shown no political courage, since becoming leader.

He well deserves to fall on his face.

I will always hold his ambition and ego responsible if Harper gains a majority and proceeds to tear down the decent Canada we all love.

Intellectuals are supposed to “know themselves,” and it couldn’t be more clear that Ignatieff either has no idea of his own limited political capacities or has such an ego he believes himself capable of tasks for which he has no talent.

Good-bye, Mr Ignatieff, you won’t be missed.

As the saying goes, don’t forget to close the door on your way out.
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Again, so long as Quebec has been out of play for the Liberals and Conservatives – the very basis for the horrible minority freak show we’ve experienced for some years – the only way to defeat Harper is through a coalition.

Mr. Dion and Jack Layton both understood this basic truth, but the Don Quixote of Canadian Liberal politics, the one wearing the colors of the Pentagon on his sleeve, did not.

This silly man actually sneered at Dion’s signing up to a coalition.

Ignatieff is so ineffective a politician, he countered Harper’s appeal to ignorance with his dishonest “stab in the back” stuff about coalitions “stealing elections” only by the most insipid statements.

Well, Harper has been a prime minister with the support of only one-third of Canadians. The two-thirds against him all represent some degree or other of progressive vote.

That’s not democracy.

A coalition of the two-thirds would have been.

And just try telling the dozens of governments in the world who have been or are ruled by coalitions that they stole elections.

Only the truly ignorant repeat this Hitler-like mantra.

Coaltions are everywhere and always a valid part of parliamentary government.

You blew it, Ignatieff, big time.

Unfortunately, we’ll all have to pay for your blundering and meddling.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

ADDITIONAL RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Response to another reader’s comment:

While I agree with your view of traditional Conservatives, genuinely decent men like Joe Clark or Peter Lougheed or Robert Stanfield, what does the once-great Liberal Party now bring us?

An arrogant putz – there is no other word for this dull and uninspiring man who doesn’t even have the faith in democratic values to gain his leadership through democratic means, just as he was parachuted into his riding at the beginning of his Don Quixote quest for political success.

And in the end, his values are nothing of which to be proud. He supported the slaughter of a million Iraqis. He speaks out on none – absolutely none – of the world’s great human-rights problems today despite the flaks’ puff stuff about him as human-rights defender.

He doesn’t object to the sad waste of our lives and treasure wasted in Afghanistan. He doesn’t question the idiocy of Canadian planes joining the Americans in their Libyan crusade, taking sides in a civil war he doesn’t even understand. Israel is just fine continuing its apartheid policies involving assassination, torture, kidnapping, and the regular theft of other peoples’ homes.

And he doesn’t say he won’t serve Pentagon interests by, for example, buying (helping to subsidize) the world’s costliest clunker of a plane, the F-35. No, he dances around saying the procedures were wrong, and he would correct them. Talk about a mamby-pamby nothing.

He goes on the radio with a pathetic ad about his mother and healthcare. Yuck, even a clever high-schooler would know better.

He is a totally inept politician, and his terrible dam-ing legacy will likely be the next five years of Harper’s ripping the guts out of our beloved country and its international reputation as a fair and decent place, turning Canada into a thin-gruel version of Republican Texas.

Thanks, Michael Ignatieff, for not having the courage to admit you do not have what it takes while yet having the diseased ego to proceed anyway.
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A newspaper has no business offering “shoulds” and “it were bests” to its readers, especially in political or religious matters.

It is paternalistic at best, just plain arrogant at worst.

Your job is to report events as scrupulously as you can – in effect, supplying the crucial information for an informed democracy.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL WARREN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Sorry, this is a silly article.

No matter what the details Harper will use the shrill charge of “coalition.”

He has already started, actually.

Coalition shouldn’t be a charge, of course, for those who understand how parliaments and democracies work, but we are dealing with the nastiest bully in the schoolyard, and the head of the Liberal Party is as weak and ineffective an opponent as it would be possible to find.

A genuine leader in opposition should hurl the lies right back in Harper’s face, but our pathetic Ignatieff isn’t tough, and, surprisingly, he just isn’t as smart as the world used to credit him from books. He’s a weak voice in the wilderness.

Just look, Harper has already started bring in the Bloc and separatism into his stupid blubbering about coalitions.

A real opposition would put a right-back-in-your-teeth ad citing all the successful legislation and changes Harper has done with the help of the Bloc.

There are always enough stupid voters out there to be influenced by trash. Just look at Sarah Palin, a woman who should be a clerk at a WalMart, making millions out of suckers.

Or look at George Bush with his eight years of stupidity and gross lies.

Harper is the same kind of politician, the worst example perhaps we have ever had on the national scene. He’s introduced a kind of filthy, irrational politics we’ve not seen before.

You can’t fight that with truth or rationality, because there is only one truth for Harper: what can I do to throw some mud, wreck some gears, gain a few votes – doesn’t matter about the truth, just so it works.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Jeffrey Simpson, you just could not be more wrong on this matter.

Yes, there is an unintended consequence, but there are unintended consequences in every conceivable way of financing parties.

Private financing, in palate-loads delivered to loading docks, is the American system that has given them, quite simply, the best government that money can buy.

Did you know that the average American Senator spends literally two-thirds of his or her time trying to raise money?

Mrs Clinton, in her race for the New York Senate, spent $45 million, an amount which brought a gasp even from her easy-virtue hubby.

If you remember, Bill Clinton, when President, was selling nights in the Lincoln bedroom for gigantic campaign contributions.

Those giving large amounts of money always get something back, if only privileged entrance to the Senator or Representative.

We must weigh the unintended consequences of one method versus another for their pernicious qualities.

Public financing is important, and it is very much a measure of our devotion to democracy.

The BQ is a legitimate party, representing the views and interests of a fair number of people in Quebec, and it deserves the same treatment as any legitimate party.

Tilting the finance system is a cheap idea from someone desperate for a quick fix to our current political impasse. It is worse in my view than the suggestions you recently pooh-poohed of the Liberals and NDP merging or the Liberals getting rid of that sea-anchor of a leader, Ignatieff.

Separatism is fading, as anyone may observe, slowly but surely.

Why? Because people in Quebec now see that they are treated as an important part of the country and because young people have careers to get on with and because in-migrants to Quebec do not see separatism as a reason for coming to Canada and because native Quebecois, like all the world’s advanced people, have low birth rates.

Besides all of that, the BQ has acted mostly the part of a responsible party, albeit one with geographically-limited interests. That is more than can be said of Harper’s Conservatives on many issues of importance.

I sometimes find it slightly amusing to call the BQ a separatist party, given the nature of its day-in, day-out activity.

And, last but not least, doing what you recommend would only be viewed in Quebec as a targeted policy against Quebec’s interests, and indeed that view would be completely right.

Foolish column, Jeffrey Simpson, very foolish.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

My, how refreshing to read Ignatieff actually speaking to an important issue.

It could not be clearer what Harper is doing.

The Globe has even published one of Tom Flanagan’s trashy columns in which the American neo-con advisor to Harper said in defending prorogation that it was a good idea not to let discrediting information be released concerning Canadian military activities.

Of course, the trouble is that Ignatieff is utterly impotent to do anything.

He can’t normally even speak to great issues, much less act on them.

When we need a hero, we have a clownish idiot-savant.

A coalition or merger cannot come too soon.

Harper is a miserable Republican extremist with a tyrant’s temperament, and he is a good chess player with Ignatieff no match.

Harper’s behavior reminds me of a saying by the late Lyndon Johnson, “It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in”

Only in Harper’s case, he is inside the tent pissing in.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY NORMAN SPECTOR IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

I have no use for separatism, but I think it more than fair to say that Mr. Duceppe is by a good measure the more statesmanlike of the three, comparing him with Harper and Ignatieff.

Duceppe also has demonstrated a solid concern for the kind of values most Canadians are comfortable with.

Harper is a nasty political accident, an extremist who has managed to enjoy power only owing to a set of circumstances beyond his control.

Ignatieff is not worth discussing. The man represents no values whatsoever. His voice is never even heard on important matters. And his past is a disgrace, whether speaking of his support for torture and mass murder or his receiving his position through anti-democratic manoeuvering. And to put the cap on it, he isn’t even interesting to listen to, rather drab in fact.

The press, and columnists like Norman Spector, actually make far more out of the separatist affiliation of Duceppe than is warranted. He has no chance ever of achieving separation, the majority of Quebec’s people not supporting that end. But he has been a more respectable and, in my view, responsible member of Parliament than Ignatieff or Harper.