You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away
- Paul Simon
I know, by his public efforts to appear reasonably normal, that Stephen Harper is a Beatles' fan. Whether he has ever listened to or crooned any of Paul Simon's songs is less certain. Yet I couldn't help but think of Simon this morning as I read Lawrence Martin's latest piece in The Globe and Mail.
Entitled The Harper machine is in disarray, Martin reflects on the many obstacles that have emerged to obstruct what I presume is Dear Leader's destination, not only to win the next election but to become Canada's long-serving prime minister. (Put aside for the moment that he seems to have blighted our political landscape for far too long already.)
Like an aging tiger, Harper seems to be losing some of his truculence. As Martin notes,
Few expected this. The bet would have been that the Prime Minister would have gone to the wall to protect Dimitri Soudas, as he has many other loyalists after acts of folly.
But just four months after having been appointed, the Conservative Party’s executive director is out the door. He joins a lengthening list. In recent months, Stephen Harper has also lost his chief of staff, his finance minister and a Supreme Court nominee, plus several senators as a result of the expenses scandal.
Dimitri Soudas' dismissal, suggests Martin, may mark an act of Harper deference to the rank and file who are becoming increasingly restive chafing under their leader's storied iron grip on all facets of the operation. Why? Matin cites several reasons:
-His party has been trailing the Liberals in the polls.
-He presided over a scandal he claimed to know little about, but should have known a lot about.
-Rebellious caucus types have confronted him, demanding some freedom of speech.
-Former finance minister Jim Flaherty contradicted him on income-splitting, a major policy plank.
One could certainly add to this list considerably, but perhaps the most egregious example of trouble has to be the almost universal repugnance with which his current favourite puppet, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre, is being met over the misnamed Fair Elections Act. I won't be surprised if loyalist Pierre is soon invited to sit in the party ejection seat as well.
Martin points out that similar problems of resistance and bickering have beset past prime ministers as they approach the 10-year mark, including Mulroney, Chretien and Trudeau, at which point it becomes a situation of fight or flight.
However unlikely, let us hope that Stephen Harper chooses the latter option.
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.. I find the fading tiger analogy problematic.. maybe its just me ..
ReplyDeleteHaving a background in social work, with criminals, mood disorders,
addiction, maximum security prisons etc, I tend to adapt to new terminology,
diagnostic criteria, and trust evidence based medicine..
More and more I trust natural consequence .. history and observation..
Tom Flanagan, a man with his own issues, demons and fallacies
glorifies his apt pupil Harper.. as a 'predator' ? Some sort of animal ?
He could better have compared Harper to a pudgy 'jail house lawyer'
ie an incarcerated felon other felons recognize as adept at gaming the law.
So there's an analogy to consider
When considering the blight that The Harper Party & its conjoined and comorbid Harper Government represents.. I keep seeing and feeling a prison connection.
No.. I doubt Harper or any of his flawed partisans will end up in jail..
Its more that the so-called Harper 'Legacy' is actually the prison and 'record' that Harper himself is building each and every day.. cementing himself in
Harper seems to have no idea on how to back down or shut the whole flawed corrupted runaway train down.. Instead he employs ludicrous inept shallow characters to double down, defend the undefendable policies or ideologies. There is not a single' Minister' in the Harper Government that can actually rationalize or coherently defend what they are doing, enacting or obstructing or making up as they go.. or are told to go. Leona on Environment ? Laughable.. pitiful. Poilievre ? Canadians love this Act?
History won't be kind at all, won't be sparing...
Harper will be vilified by every associate, MP, robo geek he 'used' or abused
And those who called out Harper for betrayal, obstruction, deceit & arrogance
will pile on.. and take some revenge.. It won't be pretty
But that's the yard, cellblock and prison range Stephen Harper operated in.
Read Garth Turner 'Sheeple' .. to catch a polite and mild but wicked reflection ..
imagine the venom and ferocity from a Soudas, or Del Mastro
the polite damning testimony of a Nigel Wright.. defended by Guy Giorno who stunningly also represents The Harper Party now (What ?!?)
How about a jilted RCMP lover.. No.. not of Stephen ...
or what if Ray Novak goes renegade.. or Stephen Lecce.. ??
Whew.. !!
Welcome to your 'Legacy' Mr Harper
It was never Fight or Flight ..
It was never fair or honest in any damn way
certainly not Canadian.. as if .. !
Nope .. it was always Blight
As always, Salamander, your metaphors light a very dark landscape. I would like to feature your commentary, once more, as a separate entry a bit later today.
DeleteIn reading your prison metaphor, I couldn't help but think of Sartre's "No Exit." Perhaps in the afterlife, Harper will be locked in a room with only a mirror for company.