[GMMAC]

PING!

[fanfan]

Having for so long savoured the joys of governing, they will not cheerfully relinquish them. Well-placed Liberals know what it is to phone some pathetic hack and tell him that he has become a senator and therefore will never know want again, no matter what -- an act of patronage unique in the democratic world.

The Liberals understand what it means to deliver jobs to old friends, become heroes by bringing government subsidies to their home towns, get their pictures in the local paper when generously giving away the public's money.

And somehow, people accept this.

:-(

[swilhelm73]

Liberals do these things with the utmost sincerity. By now Martin has probably persuaded himself that the Layton budget was the one he always intended to enact. A clever Liberal leader can turn on a dime, as Trudeau did in 1974 when he ridiculed the Tory wage-and-price-controls plan, then adopted it soon after he was re-elected.

Well heck, out Democrats are even "better" at this sort of thing. Remember LBJ demonizing Goldwater because the latter supposedly planned to send American troops to fight in Vietnam? Or Clinton attacking Bush 41 for lying on taxes, and then immediately after winning the election repudiating his own tax cut pledge?