Posted on 05/18/2006 8:33:58 PM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA -- After narrowly winning the vote to prolong the risky Afghanistan mission, a triumphant Stephen Harper crossed the floor of the Commons and threaded his way to the back of the Liberal benches to shake hands with Michael Ignatieff.
The prime minister's gesture may well turn out to be the political equivalent of the kiss of death for Ignatieff's bid to lead the Liberal party.
Ostensibly, Harper was simply thanking the rookie Toronto MP and acclaimed scholar for being one of only 24 Liberals to support the Conservative government's motion to extend the Afghanistan military deployment for two years.
But some Liberals suspect more partisan motives. They think Harper wanted to underscore the divisions the Afghanistan issue has created in Liberal ranks, particularly among the 11 leadership contenders.
And they suspect Harper wanted to embarass Ignatieff, a leadership frontrunner whose previous hawkish support for the Iraq war and President George W. Bush's ballistic missile defense scheme was already a source of deep concern for many Liberals.
In a party that harbours a strong strain of pacifism and anti-Americanism, the last thing a leadership candidate needs is a show of appreciation from Harper, whom Liberals on Parliament Hill have nicknamed "Shrub,'' as in "a little Bush.''
"Harper tried to play a little game with Ignatieff by going all the way to shake his hand,'' Montreal MP Denis Coderre, national co-chairman of Ignatieff's campaign, said in an interview Thursday.
Coderre himself voted against the motion, as did roughly three-quarters of the Liberal caucus, including half of Ignatieff's caucus supporters and six of his leadership rivals.
But Coderre dismissed suggestions that Ignatieff may have hurt his leadership chances by bucking popular sentiment in the party.
He contended that the divisions exposed by the vote were caused more by concern about the rushed process than by opposition to the Afghanistan mission. And he predicted that Liberals won't judge Ignatieff, "a man of many issues,'' strictly on the basis of one vote.
As if to prove that point, Ignatieff announced Thursday that three more MPs have joined his team. Two of them voted against extending the Afghanistan mission.
Scott Brison was the only other leadership contender to support the Tory motion. He shrugged off suggestions the vote will have any impact on his leadership hopes.
"I make my decisions not based on what is popular but on what is principled. Frankly, I think that's what Canadians deserve,'' Brison said in an interview.
Brison accused Harper of playing "petty, wedge politics'' with the issue. But he said he chose to support the motion anyway because he didn't want there to be any doubt about Parliament's support for the 2,200 Canadians soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
Rival candidates Stephane Dion, Ken Dryden, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Joe Volpe, Carolyn Bennett and Hedy Fry voted against, complaining that the government had provided little rationale for the extension and less time to debate it.
Bob Rae and Gerard Kennedy, neither of whom currently holds a federal seat, said they would have opposed the motion too had they had a vote. Toronto lawyer Martha Hall Findlay, the only other contender, has not weighed in on the issue.
While none of his rivals would directly criticize Ignatieff's decision to support the mission extension, several did leap at the chance to underline their different approach to the issue.
Rae, a former Ontario NDP premier, suggested Harper is setting a trap for Liberal leadership candidates, trying to immunize his government from future criticism should the Afghanistan campaign turn ugly. He observed that during the last presidential election, Bush was able to blunt any effective attack over his prosecution of the Iraq war by pointing out that his Democratic rival John Kerry voted in favour of the invasion.
"That's why I think you have to be very careful to not let them define you,'' Rae said in an interview.
He said the rushed Afghanistan vote was reminiscent of the way the Mike Harris Tories operated in Ontario, turning every issue, no matter how serious, to partisan advantage.
"They throw the ball at your head every time . . . Everything they do, it's not done for statesmanship, it's not done for anything else. It's done for partisan advantage,'' Rae said.
"The only thing you can do faced with that kind of a situation is not to be intimidated. These guys don't intimidate me at all. I know what they're all about. I've seen them in action.''
From one-dimensional "policy wonk" to "Niccolo Machiavelli" in 100 days.
Or is it "Sun Tzu"?
the 'evil conservative' shows respect across party lines
Ignatieff, the direct descendent of high ranking functionaries in the governments of the last two Russian Czars, is an interesting, very intelligent writer, not a typical pansy liberal by any means, at least not in matters military or in foreign relations. He was a heavyweight liberal supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He's written from an American point of view very often, so I'm amazed that he holds office in Canada, and that he's a Canadian citizen. He taught at Harvard. I assumed he was American.
Ignatieff is Canada's Kim Beazley.
who's she?
who's she?
It's a he. He is the current leader of the Australian Labor Party, the major centre-left party in Australia. A defence hawk, if I remember correctly he supports Iraq actions (although many in his party oppose it). Probably more like Liberman than "mainstream liberals" by US standards.
Would you call Beasley centre left? The ALP has to be pretty conservative to get elected and Beasley is no radical.
On Australian scale Beazley is certainly on the left relatively to John Howard. Of course by Canadian standards he would be a Conservative. In the US a Democrat just because he is relatively more to the left than, say, Rush Limbaugh (but it is not leftist by European standards). In Belgium or Finland 99% of people will want to drive Beazley out as he would be too conservative on defence-foreign affairs.
There are two definitions of the Left: a leftism in terms of absolute ideology, and a Left that is on that country's political spectrum. A very conservative person in Norway could well be a Laborite in Melbourne, and a very left-wing rep in rural Utah could well be a John Howard conservative in Sydney.
Canada ping.
Please FReepmail me to get on or off this ping list.
I can't get over an opposition party without a leader for a year!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.