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 LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

First, a great deal of time has passed with considerable change of circumstances since Pierre Trudeau was prime minister, changes which might well render Pierre himself not electable in the contemporary world.

But regardless of what Pierre’s political standing would be today, Justin is not Pierre, not even close.

Justin is a handsome and charming young man, but he received more of his mother’s genes than his father’s.

The steely will and fierce intelligence are simply not there.

I would say Thomas Mulcair more closely resembles some of what we saw in Pierre Trudeau, but that is not good news for the Liberal Party.

I suppose it’s worth a try, running Justin, but it would be a desperate measure for a desperate party whose fall is only the responsibility of its own coterie of insiders and in-fighters.
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“Those in Hog Town and kebec will love it though

“A great way to divide a country”

He was voted as the greatest Prime Minister in a public poll.

He did have qualities of toughness most people admire in a leader regardless of some policies with which you might disagree.

He also had a strong ethical bent we see utterly missing today.

Your “kebec” is stupid speech and plays to the trailer park crowd.

Talk about dividing the country, stupid speech will do it every time.
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“This is an informercial by a Grit hack.”

No, it’s a genuine matter of interest to millions.

Justin is a very popular figure.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

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

Thank you, Ms. Krieber.

You’ve spoken the simple truth.

Ignatieff is a disaster.

A disaster by every possible measure.

He has no political skills.

He has no idealism.

He has no charm.

He is simply dull and uninteresting as a speaker.

There is no spark in the man.

He is a dry academic observer, and an academic of not especially outstanding abilities.

And he carries a record of views that are unacceptable to all ethical Canadians.

Dion is a good and intelligent and perceptive man, but he made a serious political mistake with his Green Shift going into an election.

Had the party allowed him to recover in the normal fashion, I think he would be embraced by many Canadians.

Instead, the blind people running the party shoved Ignatieff down our throats.

Ignatieff’s record for his few years in Canadian politics reads like something from the old Poliburo.

Parachuted into his riding. Parachuted into the leadership. Uninteresting to the people.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

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

‘“Can I trust this guy?” And he hasn’t given us the answer.’

I disagree with that point in your otherwise excellent article, Denis Smith: he very much has given us the answer.

The truth is Ignatieff has always been a politician, and a rather shallow one. Anyone who listened to him carefully years ago knows that.

Most importantly, Ignatieff’s stuff on human rights has always seemed more of a cocktail-party view than a bred-in-the-bone characteristic: it is precisely the kind of stage persona shallow politicians assume.

He reminds me of a rich blue-haired Boston matron attending a dazzling gala to benefit some cause somewhere out there in the third world. She doesn’t much care in about the nitty-gritty of the cause, and perhaps even knows little about it, but she is concerned with her reputation among a certain social set.

Ignatieff has always given us words with little or no substance, and different words to different audiences, nicely calculated to appeal to each with half truths.

I believe there is no center, no “there,” to Michael Ignatieff, and that has always been the case. His writing and lectures betray that. They are characterized by mannered ambiguity and not particularly insightful or exhibiting the thirst for justice.

The Liberal Party has made a terrible choice in Ignatieff, and it was not even a democratic choice.

The fact that he accepted the leadership in this fashion speaks volumes.

God, we desperately need a genuine leader, a person of eloquence and driving concern for justice. It is regrettable to have to say that Gilles Duceppe displays these characteristics immensely more than Harper or Ignatieff.

That great thumping political cretin, Harper, is shaming our country in a dozen ways, from handing out orders in Foreign Affairs to have the term “child soldier” not used to condemning the UN for deaths of observers in Lebanon murdered while bravely doing their jobs.

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY REX MURPHY IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Three decades in Canada is only part of what Ignatieff is missing.

Perhaps more important is his lack of any real contact or bond with people. There is something, not just aristocratic, but almost autistic about Ignatieff.

He just does not reach the emotions because he just does not feel them.

Contrast him with a wonderfully earthy and charming politician like Chretien, and you feel there is nothing there.

Even in the sphere of the intellect, supposedly Ignatieff’s great strength, I find him surprisingly wanting. Again, compare him to Trudeau whose brilliance shines in every photo and is burned into memory, and there is little there but mannered words and the indulgent remembrance of a well-connected family.

Ignatieff is altogether an unimpressive politician.

If you add his absence and long lack of interest to Canada, he becomes even more unappealing.

And if you add his past defense of torture, mass murder, and imperial brutishness, there is nothing there worth talking about.

This sad situation is made sadder still by the utterly soulless Harper, a robot with no personality and no sense of ethics, giving us nowhere to place a comforting vote of trust.

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“Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion.”

– Stephen Harper

Many thanks to the person above for posting this. Of course, we must also rememmber Harper supported America’s mass murder in Iraq, and wanted us to join in the slaughter.