Opinion

Things are really not so bad, I tell myself. I just finished watching Lewis Mackenzie give a speech on his experience of reading a local Ottawa paper the first morning he returned from the Balkans. In his speech, the general relays the story of watching some kids being blown limb from limb in front of his eyes. In his speech the general points out how the lead story on that day in that paper was to GST or to not GST. The point of the story being how wonderful a place our country is. I so agree with him. And so, I tell myself things are no so bad.

But the old brain just won’t leave it alone with that simple thought. I think to myself, how do we keep this wonderful place, well, wonderful?  How do we keep what is arguably the most wonderful place not just to live now, but to ever have lived, that way for our kids?  The party in power is so American, its hard to imagine them in power. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that we laughed at the antics of the Reform movement, so Texan that it was too Texan even for my Texan friends.

Well, no one is laughing now.

Prime Minister is thumbs up

And why wouldn’t the Prime Minister be thumbs up?  It’s not as ‘good as it gets’, but the lack of any real spine on the part of the opposition parties, has landed the Prime Minister in a pretty nice spot.

Jack Layton will not bring the government down. Not even for a policy near and dear to the NDP’s heart, employment benefits for suffering workers.  To listen to Mr. Layton, Mr. Harper’s plan must pass, because of course an NDP government just couldn’t do a better job.

Listening Mr. Ignatieff reminds me a lot of a neighbors toy dog.  Always making a lot of noise about something, always ‘talking tough’ but when the big dog comes along, the little dog just fades away with a few grumbles. And of course no one wants to run with a chihuahua. So for the time being, until one or the other opposition party comes up with a strong leader and by strong we mean, someone with a backbone, Mr. Harper can and has, been doing pretty much what his Reform party impulses tell him to do. The man is brilliant. Perhaps the smartest politician in power in the western world. To watch Mr. Harper maneuver, out fox and generally put down his opposites is to watch a master at work.

You may not love his policies, but you have to love Mr. Harper’s mastery.