“I don’t know how the Conservatives are to going to function without Dion. They’ve been simply obsessed with him for years now.”

I miss him already.

I miss him already.

I’m sure they’re more than enough kids you can give wedgies to during recess.

when are the liberals going to stop obsessing about Mike Harris and Brian Mulroney.

When they’re finally in prison. Why do you ask?

I don’t obsess about them. The media does.

I’m disappointed that Jean is banned too, but it’s not a freedom of speech issue. As much as Ti-Guy would like to imagine that there’s a collective responsibility for the media, Macleans is paying for the hosting service, their terms of use are available for everyone to read, and if I read Paul’s post correctly, it’s a temporary suspension until Monday.

Hopefully he will be back. Some of his posts were insightful, but the volume and personal attacks were a bit hard to take at times. I’ve got a thick skin, but sometimes you want to let other people get a word in edgewise. It can be intimidating if one person is continually dominating the conversation.

I don’t think anybody on the left or the centre-left will mistake Ignatieff as being left-leaning, Two Yen. I also doubt that anybody in the centre or on the centre-right would make that mistake.

Sticking with the coalition…and remember that Stephen Harper, who nobody ever accused of being left-leaning, tried for a similar deal with the NDP and the Bloc…gives Ignatieff some options though. He can credibly threaten to bring down the government. He can, if he provides the evidence, credibly claim to have brought not just the Liberals, but the entire coalition to the right.

The claim that the coalition is excessively left-leaning is already untrue though, and has been since its inception. The NDP backed off rolling back corporate tax cuts. The Liberals gave up the Green Shift. The Bloc gave up separatist policies. It’s the kind of compromise that mature politicians make in a minority government.

Ignatieff, a right-leaning Liberal, has said that if asked by the GG he would honour the existing terms of the coalition. I suggest that reading those terms would indicate a pretty centrist document.

I think Ignatieff’s best bet is to keep on his present track, but make a point of explaining the coalition to the Canadian public. He could even encourage them to read it for themselves. Once one learns the truth, the Conservative spin looks a lot like hysterical McCarthyism, after all.

It’s fascinating how this is being spun in ROC and Quebec. We know how the Conservatives have painted us a picture of the libs/ndp jumping into bed with the separitists [ why always the sexual allusion?] Apparently in Quebec it’s the bloc in bed with the feds. I guess the old saying: politics makes for strange bd fellows also depends , in this case, which of the two solitudes apply.

I agree with whyshouldIsellyourwheat’s comment, half way up. Constitutionally, the threat of a takeover without an election has a half-life — say, oh, end of February? Or whatever the GG decides. But politically its half-life is even shorter. Not sure it could outlast the budget — how could Liberals, after passing the SFT and getting the Tories to back down on the FUFU and passing the January budget — how could they then turn around and say “We think this Government is fundamentally off the rails”? If it looks, to some, like a putsch now, it would look beyond cynical in late February or March. So — assuming Harper caves in the budget, gets it approved, starts governing meekly — how does Iggy play it then? Keep hammering home the point about “Harper isn’t doing enough” as cataclysm spreads (and spread it will), or wait for Harper to fumble the ball? My guess is, the former. Rightly or wrongly (often wrongly), Canadians are in the habit of blaming government for bad stuff; Iggy would be a fool not to build a case against Harper on that basis. He’s off to a good start.

Jack Mitchell,

Excerpt from a girl scout song (adapted):

Then down came the Good Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny FUFU,
I don’t wanna see you
Scooping up the field mice,
and bopping them on the head.

And the moral of the story is:
Hare today, goon tomorrow!

Cargo cults only ever occur in primitive tribal societies, like, oh, say Alberta for example. snark

Looks like Paul has prorouged Jean Proulx. I wonder who’s next?

Harper’s plan is to cut every socail program none to canadians and govern with a capitalist point of view. If we as a country do not support the lower woking class and cater to the rich, we will make our economy go south. Mr. Haper has literaly made a check mate move, with his “bail out the corporations” idiotic budget. Now he has taken a two month time out to stop governing in this rough econmic time, right when we need a government most. He has also said that the forming of a coalition between the Bloc, Liberal and NDP is against Canadian Democracy….well Mr. Harper, CANADA VOTED AGAINST your nuthead, ignorant CONSERVATIVES, when you brake it down between the left wing. One more thing Mr. Harper and all nut heads who support your party: THE BLOC is a SOUGHVERNIST PARTY NOT a seperatist party. We need a government which gives the voice to english and french Canada, because english and french are who made Canada

“THE BLOC is a SOUGHVERNIST PARTY NOT a seperatist party. ”

Simon, it’s late, it’s Saturday night, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’ve been drinking. If I’m wrong, all I can say is that your soft-headedness has made you easy prey for the BQ/PQ propaganda machine.