“…a senior Ignatieff Liberal has called on the new leader to provide substance to the weekend gathering.
“‘Right now, I would like him doing some more on policy,’ the veteran Liberal said. ‘Give yourself a few more clothes on the issues.’
“And another veteran Grit said Mr. Ignatieff simply has to ‘loosen up.’ He’s made inroads over the past two years, but he still comes across as a bit of a snob, the Liberal said.”
— Globe and Mail, today
A third senior Liberal, leaning on his walker because he’s quite senior, said Ignatieff sometimes sings “out of tune.” “It’s OK when he’s singing old show tunes and, you know, ‘Danny Boy’ and whatnot,” the source said, “but after about 10 p.m. he likes to do these duets with Szuszana on songs from Fiddler on the Roof and, you know, dude, I’m gonna need my ears tomorrow, know what I’m saying?”
A junior Liberal, speaking indistinctly through orthodontic braces, said Ignatieff “schometimes makesh fun of the way I talk.” A Liberal with considerable clout in one of the Atlantic provinces who has begun to affect half-moon glasses that he wears way down on his nose said, “Come on, everyone’s gonna know I’m Paul Zed if you attribute the quote like that.”
A source close to Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili said, “Sorry, I think I’m in the wrong story.”
The junior Liberal said, “Shorry. My fault. Ignatieff, Saakashvili, what’sh the diff?”
The source close to Saakashvili said, “Russian isn’t the same as Georgian! Doofus!”
A priest, a rabbi and two plumbers walk into a bar. The bartender says, “I’m sorry, the duck just left. Also, it seems to me that this high-speed rail thing just won’t be convincing if Ignatieff promises to make the thing stop at every town in southern Ontario. I mean, Chatham? How fast can a train go if it starts in Windsor and stops in Chatham? ”
The source close to Saakashvili said, “Oh, boo-hoo. We have one two-lane highway between Gori and Tbilisi. Bitch when you’ve been in my shoes, buddy. Hey, how do I get out of this story anyway?”
A senior Conservative said, “I think it’s all gone downhill since he hired Guy Giorno. Oh, come on! That’s so banal! Everybody thinks that. I could be any senior Conservative! I never get the good lines.”
A senior source at the Prime Minister’s Office said, “Actually, we’re just moving ahead with our agenda. Canadians aren’t interested in these process stories.”
Three senior members of the press gallery printed the same quote in their stories. The senior source at the Prime Minister’s Office said, “Well, I guess the jig is up then. I’m Kory Teneycke.”
A senior museum administrator who grew up in Edmonton, lives in Toronto, and nourishes a stubborn fondness for the architect Daniel Libeskind shrugged. “Hey, don’t blame me. I’m not running that paper any more.”
