I stop writing for a month, and nothing really happens.
Well, not entirely true. Plenty of things have happened–they just all equate to exactly the same thing as we had at the end of August. Specificly, not a whole hell of a lot. Stephen Harper’s still holding on to the threads of a government that works very hard at hardly working, Jack and Gilles are, well, saving their own bacon, and Ignatieff? Well, we still have no idea what he’s about.
It’s that part of the political problem that the Globe and Mail’s Rex Murphy tries to excuse on the part of the liberal party. Iggy has all the brains and academic background to run this country sky high into the black, according to the article. There’s just one problem. For a university smart man, he’s an idiot. His attention’s put squarely on what the government’s doing wrong, or not doing at all, giving absolutely no attention whatsoever to what he’d do differently–no, Mike, “wait and see” is not putting your attention on what you’d do differently.
Correctly pointed out in the National Post on Sunday, there aren’t any real leadership qualities that come with this new prime minister in waiting. But we did get a new slogan. That has to be worth something, no? Not to the voters, who still both don’t want an election and, really, don’t really know or much like Ignatieff–I’m excluding the liberal loyalists here, who’d vote for a chipmonk during a leadership convension if they thought it might have a shot at knocking the conservatives out cold. And, of course, if they still believed in voting for their leaders.
We did get one good, clean, solid promise from sir Iggy, though. Seems if he were in power, he’d cut expenses in an attempt at balancing Canada’s budget. While at the same time funding new government programs. This simultaneous reduction and increase of government funding will have a miraculous effect on the $50 billion debt that is apparently all the conservatives’ fault. When asked how he’d do so, he provided an answer that will surely draw voters to his party in droves. Looking right at the reporter, he folded his hands in that usual academic way that’s supposed to make those of us who didn’t teach at a university fall absolutely in love with him and said, in his best reasuring voice, “Wait and see.”.
