Great moments in punditocracy.
Mr. Martin faces defeat, not because voters have rejected the Liberal dream, but because they believe that dream is secure. Yesterday, he warned that Canadians had to choose between his values -- fiscal responsibility in the service of a welfare state -- and what he called "the most socially conservative agenda of any political party we've ever seen in this country."
But Canadians don't feel they have to choose. They see a Conservative Party that has abandoned its flirtation with conservative fundamentalism, recognizing that such an agenda will never lead to power.
-- John Ibbitson, in the Globe and Mail, January, 2005.
Given the circumstances, there is only one possible governing strategy: a quiet, patient, and persistent bipartisanship.
-- Joe Klein, quoted in the New Yorker Magazine, December, 2000.
Yes, I'm aware that it's a low blow to compare anyone to Joe Klein. And yes, I'm aware that Harper isn't, for a myriad reasons, comparable to the Bush brand of awfulness, and that with a minority government he won't be able to drive the country dramatically to the right anyway. But mainly I'm fucking sick of fuzzy pundits confidently informing me that the ReformAllicanceTory Party has "abandoned its flirtation with conservative fundamentalism" and has reverted to its old-school Progressive Conservative ways. I'm sick of this soothing sooth-saying, in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary, placed typically in the mouths and minds of "the voters", and always in service of advancing this election season's irresistable, all-incompassing dumbass dramatic motif: The Tragedy of the Martin Liberals.
The soap opera isn't going to end in time for dinner. It may or may not be tragedy, but whatever it is, we're going to be living it for the next several years.
But Canadians don't feel they have to choose. They see a Conservative Party that has abandoned its flirtation with conservative fundamentalism, recognizing that such an agenda will never lead to power.
-- John Ibbitson, in the Globe and Mail, January, 2005.
Given the circumstances, there is only one possible governing strategy: a quiet, patient, and persistent bipartisanship.
-- Joe Klein, quoted in the New Yorker Magazine, December, 2000.
Yes, I'm aware that it's a low blow to compare anyone to Joe Klein. And yes, I'm aware that Harper isn't, for a myriad reasons, comparable to the Bush brand of awfulness, and that with a minority government he won't be able to drive the country dramatically to the right anyway. But mainly I'm fucking sick of fuzzy pundits confidently informing me that the ReformAllicanceTory Party has "abandoned its flirtation with conservative fundamentalism" and has reverted to its old-school Progressive Conservative ways. I'm sick of this soothing sooth-saying, in the face of plenty of evidence to the contrary, placed typically in the mouths and minds of "the voters", and always in service of advancing this election season's irresistable, all-incompassing dumbass dramatic motif: The Tragedy of the Martin Liberals.
The soap opera isn't going to end in time for dinner. It may or may not be tragedy, but whatever it is, we're going to be living it for the next several years.
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