Sunday, December 03, 2006

Dear Steve: It must suck to be you.


It can't be much fun being Stephen Harper these days, what with almost everything he touches turning to shit in short order.

First, there was that whole softwood lumber "deal," with which he tried to shovel almost half a billion dollars of Canada's money straight to the Bush White House. I haven't heard a lot about that lately -- what's going on there?

Then there were Steve's party members, all acting like Stewie Griffin in dire need of a diaper change -- Peter MacKay acting rude, Daniel Petit acting ruder and Rona Ambrose acting just plain moronic 24/7. Fine specimens of political maturity, the lot of them.

Then there's two of Steve's hand-picked, anointed ones getting their genitals handed to them in recent elections, Dianne Haskett in London North Centre and batshit-crazy Ted Morton out in Alberta. Man, that's gotta hurt.

And to top things off, Harper is determined to re-open the SSM debate, practically guaranteeing another wicked towel snap to the nads and tons of free publicity for new Liberal leader Stephane Dion.

Does life get any better than this?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'd like to know what's happened to the softwood deal-funded White House slush fund as well. I'm suspecting that, with the White House's fortunes in the dumper, they're probably thinking they won't be able to use it any way they can get away with easily.

...and in that case, give it back.

Anonymous said...

Do you think this move on SSM might backfire on him?

The Harper machine like to tout themselves as supporting Canadians core beliefs but I've noticed they play that card only when it coincides with their own agenda.
They immorally took Israels side this summer with the Lebanon invasion.
I thought one of our core beliefs was to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before using deadly force.
Now take the human rights stance with China. Here's where the Venn overlap comes into play.
China frowns upon religious proselytizing so Christian missionaries would be denied entry.
This lets Harper crow about standing up for a laudable concern but for a different reason than claimed.

We know Harpers motivation behind a wedge issue like SSM.
The trouble will arise with his own MPs who won their riding by a small majority.
Remember the Cons got in more for being not Liberals than the merits of their own platform.
A vote on this will force an MP to actually go on record as to where they stand.
For the next six months/Friedman, the Liberals are going to go to great lengths to sell a reinvented product free and clear of the bad old ways.
So what benefits can be gained by this polarizing vote on CPoCs slim hold on government?
Will it swing enough votes to make a close race come down for the Liberals?
Voters knew the CPoC partys' SSM stance in last election so I don't see a move like this doing anything but resulting in a loss of votes down the road, maybe even enough to lose a seat or ten.

I didn't think Stevie was a gambling man, thought that stuff wasn't Christian.
But cursing up a storm with the loss of power doesn't sound too Christian either.

Which caution is more apt here;
Look before you leap or
Careful what you wish for.

Simon said...

Re: softwood slush fund:

Great investment there, Steve-O. You really backed a winner.

Anonymous said...

Mes amis --

Good question there. Personally, I can't see how anything good for Harper can come out of it. Up to now, it seems to me he's managed to keep his more rabid MPs quiet, helping (or at least not hurting) the perception that his caucus contains sensible people who could govern well enough if they only had a majority.

But to bring back this debate? How can he keep his gay-bashers and haters quiet, or at least sensible-sounding? (Unless they all spout the same talking point -- wouldn't that be priceless? "Potted plants" indeed.) Anyway, to cut to the chase, at the moment the Cons don't look too wingnutty. But let this debate happen and all that bottled-up moral indignation and puffed-wheat rectitude will geyser out like blood from a severed artery and prove to the electorate that Steve's party really is the Big Tent for Ugly Souls.

So I don't know why he isn't trying to backpedal out of it. Perhaps he's not quite the canny strategist he's cracked up to be.