Can't help it...
posted by coyote
Y'know, for my New Year's resolution, I swore that I was going to go cold (leftover, Christmas) turkey on tiresome political rants. I really did. Sadly, the road to hell is paved with velleities. Or, as my wise, but (thankfully) rather indecorous, Uncle Harry Coyote once said over a bowl of high-test Scotch, "The things we pretend to intend to do." I, ummm, digress. Musta been the Scotch...
But I have been provoked. Sometime over the holiday, the PM gambled that the Canadian body politic has become ADD enough to be distracted by by Olympic bread and circuses while he tries (for the eleventy-third time since his minority government began business) to game our democratic system like a cheap pinball machine. Until he's busted it.
The media, pundits, Facebook, and some of our favourite bloggers et. al. are hitting parliamentary prorogation in depth. Keep piling it deeper, deeper, I say!
But what I return to is the fact that, while we all may not quite get the niceties of prorogation - hell, some us can't even pronounce it without our tongues wrapping sloppily around our pointy noses - we know morally bankrupt cynicism when we smell it. Even with our tongues wrapped around our noses.
If I was a betting coyote, I'd bet he wants a spring election. The guy actually granted "real" journalists some interviews this week. Including the CBC. And he tried to smile while he greased Peter Mansbridge heavily enough to clog arteries. He only ever does these things when he thinks he has to. And he only thinks he has to when he's shooting for that elusive majority. Too bad the public ain't exactly down with that plan.
I've said before that the PM is an unreconstructed strategy board gamer. Like too many half-smart gamers, he considers himself an unassailable whiz kid. Trouble is, also in common with too many half-smart gamers, he's more into slightly sociopathic tactics than, you know, actual strategies for decent governance. And he's so fixated on his own whizzing that he fails to see when it sprays on other people's feet.
Posts
4 comments:
I admire your faith in the electorate, I really do, but I fear it's misplaced. Much as there's a grumbling ripple of disgruntlement over this latest move, the PM's confidence and voting history of late makes me believe that if this PM calls a spring election, he will get re-elected. And, because no one has any connection whatsoever to the current Liberal leadership, he could very well get his majority this time if for no other reason than to put an end to annual elections. The average guy on the street doesn't give a crap about prorogues or prologues or yule logs. They're only interested in what's in it for them.
I took my anti nausea meds and then watched the Mansbridge interview and was struck, not for the first time, by what happens to Harper when he talks to people.
Through a few innocuous questions and Harper's own crap about re-calibrating their economic plans he looked fine and solid and smarmy as usual.
Then Mansbridge started poking a bit at the detainee torture question and suddenly he couldn't stop blinking as he explained that the Canadian people really don't care about that at all. This is of course one of the classic signs that a person is lying and knows he's lying.
Stevie Harper, seldom right, except for the wing, and so far never honourable.
XUP: Ma'am, I am not at all sanguine about the electorate's attention span, nor its selflessness. But no matter what Mr. Harper keeps avering that "the Canadian people really want" on its behalf, it's kinda pissed at the moment. Cool by me.
Bandobras: Whatever can you mean? Mr Harper is a veritable paragon of political honesty. Blinkblinkblink.
Analysis of Harper's blinking is not worthwhile. He may have been blinking because he cares deeply about issues most Canadians are ignorant of. He may have been blinking because he cares deeply about Peter Mansbridge. But Cynthia Dale is Mansbridge's wife and wouldn't approve. Which leads me to ask why, next election, don't we write in Dale's name on the ballot? She'd make a good PM as she's astute in singing, dancing, and acting.
Post a Comment