"while many Canadian politicians claim to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative, Harper is turning out to be the opposite on both scales."

It is a great line, whoever came up with it.

I am trying wrap my head around fiscally progressive and socially conservative = hmmm I kind of like it Paul it works. As to what is happening in the world right now of course it doesn't fit in well with past narratives – when we lost more than 30% of the global value in all of our economies and all at once literally overnight a few months ago the world changed, the solutions will be new and different if at all and the media is going to have find a new narrative! all bets are off all models wrong and all methods of predictive analuysis are obsolete (you should see the innards of provincial gov't and so called financial experts running around in circles in the prov gov'ts right now as nothing adds up and all the numbers are basically imaginary when it comes to projections and everyone knows it but no one wants to talk about it ) -clinging to old modes of thought is redundant and as they say adapt or die …

Gee, will Mr. Coyne be even righter ( he he ) if inflation and interest rates actually do increase ?

while many Canadian politicians claim to be socially progressive and fiscally conservative, Harper is turning out to be the opposite on both scales

Not sure how the word "opposite" is being used here.

There's nothing progressive–socially or otherwise–about being fiscally and economically irresponsible.

I'd say that Stephen Harper–incompetent and dishonourable–is being both socially regressive and economically reckless.

By responding to Page like he did, he set a trap for Ignatieff. Page's argument is "this deficit is sooooo big, we'll have to raise taxes or cut spending or both." Basically what Ignatieff said at Cambridge, Ont recently (i.e. the"gaffe"). Harper has called the Page/Ignatieff position "dumb." If Ignatieff defends Page, Harper can say "you see, he wants to raise taxes." If Ignatieff doesn't defend Page, Harper can say "you see, Ignatieff actually likes and supports my view, so why change?"

Either way, Ignatieff is euchred, again.

*blink* One knows partisanship has overwhelmed all other considerations when Canadian Liberals are sounding like American Republicans. Something has changed since Harper's early statements on a deficit: through no fault of Canada's, the world has entered a deep recession.

What would you have Harper do? Raise taxes and slash spending during a recession, purposely defeating the purpose of the stimulus? Then you could happily condemn him as the next RB Bennet. I am not a conservative – I am a New Democrat – but a little intellectual honestly would be appreciated.