Posted on 12/02/2005 12:08:58 PM PST by GMMAC
The candidates who fell to Earth
Ottawa Sun
Fri, Dec. 2, 2005
By Michael Harris
Star candidates may be a boon to their parties, but their impact on democracy is more like a plummeting asteroid's
This week, the Liberals introduced two "star" candidates to the Mud Bowl of the General Election. They looked more like asteroids, the ones in those horror movies that collide with Earth and blow us all back to cosmic dust.
Marc Garneau was unveiled in Quebec by Paul Martin as if he were an exotic exhibit in the zoo of our national politics, a new acquisition to make people forget how bad the place smells at the moment. True, Garneau was the first Canadian in space. Judging from his comments at his coming-out party, he's still not on the planet.
Boiling mad
For years now, Quebeckers have been boiling mad over the ad sponsorship scandal. Why not? It made their province look like a septic tank rather than the right ventricle of Canada's heart. Their anger spilled over in the 2004 election when all they had to go on was the Liberanos lying their heads off on cable television at the Gomery Inquiry. This time they have Mr. Justice John Gomery's published findings of fact. They are chiseled like an epitaph across the tombstone of the Liberal brand in Quebec.
But that may change. Jean Chretien, partially blamed for the ad sponsorship scandal, chose this week to take Judge Gomery to federal court to have his findings overturned. So with the first part of the Gomery inquiry under the cloud of a possible court reversal, (remember, these were the guys who reinstated Chretien's chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, to his job at VIA rail) and the second part months away from publication, Marc Garneau gravely announced that it was time to "move on" from scandal.
His brave exploits to one side, there is something Garneau has yet to experience; watching his chosen party eaten alive by the 800-lb. tiger of Quebeckers' disgust on the night of Jan. 23. By comparison, space will seem warm and friendly.
The other Liberal asteroid candidate, Michael Ignatieff, also used the phrase that it was time to "move on" at his noisy coronation in Etobicoke-Lakeshore. He was referring to the messy way he elbowed out sitting MP Jean Augustine.
Not only did Iggy steal a safe seat from an incumbent cabinet minister, he got the nomination without the possibility of a challenge. Democratic process is clearly for the non-asteroid candidates. Neither are party rules, which forbid the candidacy of someone not "ordinarily resident" in Canada. (It was awfully nice of Michael to drop in from Boston to pick up the nomination.)
Looking more like the Nutty Professor than a future prime minister, Ignatieff blathered his way through his acclamation to a chorus of boos. There were actually people in the room who believed that an appeal to "fair play and decency" would guarantee their right to a contested nomination. Bless them in their innocence. It was into the lobster pot headfirst for anyone who challenged the ascent of the guy in the PMO parachute and none other than national president of the Liberal Party, Michael Eizenga, was in the chair to make sure the fix stayed in.
Paul Martin may come to regret his latest appointment. Michael Ignatieff carries more baggage than a mule in a taxi strike. Here is a human rights professor who believes what 80% of Canadians, his own party, and two-thirds of Americans do not: That the war in Iraq was a good idea. He is also the Wagner-esque creator of the doctrine that lesser evil is allowed in the fight against greater evil, a notion that warms the hearts of people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, as their people waterboard the enemy for the homeland.
As a thinker, Ignatieff has carried nuance all the way to incoherence. Iggy has written that "torture does work," and that "regulated" torture is the way to go. He has rejected what he calls the "absolutist moral perfectionist human rights stand" on the subject. In other words, he rejects the quaint international law that outlaws all torture without qualification. "I can see us doing it" he wrote, along with the suggestion that in the battle against greater evil torture is okay as long as we give it a new name. He did: "coercive interrogation."
But my favorite Iggy-ism is this one: If torture is being administered by a "non-sadistic" and "patriotic American" then the torturer should stand trial for his crime but be allowed the legal defence of "mitigation."
Every inch a human rights champion, yes? But even more important for Paul Martin is this: How can he use the Iraq war card against Stephen Harper while campaigning for a "star" candidate who is George Bush's Rasputin? If Liberals can support the war in the name of personal freedom, why can't the GST Slayer?
No guarantee
From top to bottom, star candidates may be good for their parties but they are bad for our democracy. They rarely want to go through a democratic process to win a nomination. They always want more than the seat they are running for, actively conceal that fact, and usually get their way. And their fame in other areas is absolutely no guarantee they will be good MPs or cabinet ministers.
Stars or asteroids, these candidates are all about a sense of dizzying entitlement. How fitting. Isn't that what this frolic in the snow is all about too?
Love your profile page ~ good stuff!
Thanks for the post and link.
The Liberals are in big trouble - stuck in the gate while the other horses roar down the track.
Librano Boss Paulie Nonuts will be weeping in public by New Year's, and wetting himself by Election Day.
Perhaps Mr. Dithers will have a celebrity after-life like Bob Dole - only doing Depends commercials instead of Viagra.
Uh .. that's BAG of tricks.
It's also hillarious to see Ken Dryden in the house of commons...like a paper weight. They are all so pathetic
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with everything I can find on the current Canadian situation, including some very informative links & comments from the blogosphere.
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