At Home in Hespeler

Michael Ignatieff “channels Bob Dylan,” according to the Globe and Mail’s Jane Taber. He has used it in his speeches, and sent it in an email to supporters:

It’s like Bob Dylan sang: “You’ve gotta serve somebody.” Let’s show Stephen Harper what that means

Bob Dylan’s Serve Somebody, from 1979’s Slow Train Coming is a great song. It won Dylan a Grammy and brought him back onto the charts after years of being off them. But what does it mean?

You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

You Got to Serve Somebody is not a song about public service, not a song about Maritime daycare for single moms who want to be heavy equipment operators. It is a song about service to God. Michael Ignatieff would be just as well to quote Onward Christian Soldiers. And of course, if Stephen Harper sat at the piano and started singing it, Jane Taber would know that.
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The fall of 1978 was a low point for Bob Dylan. His career was sliding: record sales were down and reviews for both his records and his live performances were terrible. Even the Village Voice, which is a sort of home town paper to Dylan, had a recent edition which printed four negative reviews.

The current tour was also taking a physical toll. Dylan played a gig in Montreal in October with a temperature of 105. On November 17th, Dylan was playing in San Diego. He still did not feel well, and it showed:

Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd… knew I wasn’t feeling well. I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage.

Dylan, uncharacteristically, picked up the cross off the stage and put it in his pocket. Travelling to Tucson, Dylan was feeling worse. Nothing he tried was working, and he felt he needed something different.

I looked in my pocket, and there was this cross…

…and he had a vision of Jesus, and became that scariest of modern day creatures, a born again Christian.

Michael Ignatieff is being a clever, average hippy quoting Bob Dylan. He could have quoted Einstein (The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule); or Tolstoy (The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity); or John Adams (If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve). He chose Dylan for a reason, to appeal to the baby-boomers. Let Stephen Harper sing the Beatles, he’ll out groovy him and quote Bob Dylan like a second rate literature professor.

Unfortunately for Ignatieff, unlike Tolstoy or Einstein, he doesn’t understand the context of the Dylan lyric. Being a square, not an average, groovy kind of guy, Ignatieff didn’t really now what he was saying.

Pompous Igghead Bob Dylan, Einstein, Jane Taber, John Adams, Michael Ignatieff, Serve Somebody, Tolstoy

The scene unfolds easily in front of you. The Government has fallen, a minority Parliament ends in a vote of non-confidence. The governing party is reeling from scandal, yet the polls say the election will end much as it began, with the current Prime Minister returning to Ottawa with a minority mandate. Radio shows ask the question: why would the opposition force an election they can’t win? Why waste this money on a vote that will end in the same Parliament as it began?

The leader of the opposition was on the defensive. Canadians don’t want this election, don’t need this election. His patriotism had already been called into question and he was gaffe prone. On day one of the campaign he makes, the media assert, another gaffe. Without prompting, without a clue, he says there will be a free vote on gay marriage in the house under his government.

Why, why would Stephen Harper give such a gift to Paul Martin? Why would he make it about his scary agenda instead of Paul Martin’s corrupt, bag of money under the table, Liberals?

In reality, what that statement did was take the question of gay rights out of the debate. It took from the Liberals the, “those scary Conservatives and their hidden agenda want to take away your human rights,” attack. It saw what was coming, and neutered it. It was a well thought out strategy, and served warning that the Conservatives were ready and serious about the 2005/06 campaign.

They ran a brilliant campaign focusing on five core policies and announcing one new policy initiative every day. They were lean, they were direct, and they spoke to voters with simple policies that resonated. And when the going got tough, when the very nasty Liberals personally attacked, they ignored it and stayed on message. It worked, and the Conservatives won.

Now the roles are reversed, the Conservatives have the dirt of governance on their hands, the attack ads, the scandals involving accounting tricks with their own money. Things are so bad in Ottawa, even Jack Layton is indignant. Yet the polls say the Conservatives will be back, probably with a minority. Why would the opposition risk so much?

Like Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff is going to answer to charges he has a scary hidden agenda. In Harper’s case it was a social conservative agenda. In Ignatieff’s, it is the question of forming a coalition that includes the Bloc. It is there, it will be in the ads, and Ignatieff had better answer the question directly and honestly right off the bat.

Day 1:

• blue serge suit dry cleaned – check
• non-confidence voted – check
• have answer to sticky question ready…

There is a blue door, there is a red door. We’re gonna elect a Liberal Government.

Here’s a hint Mr. Ignatieff. The answer to every single question you ever get asked in politics is not a quote from Go Dog Go!

Day 2:

Someone please, get on the phone and explain to the Count that it is a yes or no question: If the Conservatives get a plurality, but not a majority, will you enter into a coalition with the NDP and Bloc? Yes/No.

And here’s a tip, the right answer is no. The worst answer is, “The light is green now, Go Dogs Go!”

Coalition of the Treasonous, Pompous Igghead, The Count Coalition, Michael Ignatieff, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper

for whatever reason, I don’t tend to feel sorry for you. Ever.

One question for Margaret Atwood, The Barenaked Morons (or any coked up ex-morons), Quebec and everyone else who protested that Conservative cuts to arts funding was the end of culture in Canada:

Do you, or do you not believe that Erica Basniki’s tax dollars should go towards paying for Homegrown, a play about Toronto 18 terrorist Shareef Abdelhaleem?

You at the back… yes you, Michael Ignatieff… Your first.

Michael Ignatieff, Pompous Igghead Barenaked Ladies, Culture, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ignatieff, Shareef Abdelhaleem, Stephen Harper

I have been puzzled by what to say about the reported $35B budget deficit for next year. Flabbergasted begins to explain my reaction, but the larger question is, what was the point of saving the government from the coalition of the economorons? So the Conservatives could outspend them? Harper should have let the opposition take ownership of this kind of deficit, and fought them on it when they cannibalized themselves.

Today, Stephen Harper is queried by Sun Media. Believe it or not he calls this a majority government budget except for, “a couple of things where we’re making concessions to the opposition we wouldn’t normally make…”

Seriously Stephen Harper, economist, you would create a $35B deficit with a majority? Finally we have found that mysterious hidden agenda.

Meanwhile John McCallum was earlier this week blaming the Tories for the upcoming budget deficit because they increased spending and cut taxes in the past couple of years. But hold on, the Liberals are demanding stimulus. Threatened to topple the government because there wasn’t enough stimulus in the fall update. In fact, John McCallum said this recently:

Finally, this government is talking about a real stimulus, which is what other countries have been doing for months.

(And what have other governments been doing John McCallum? In Britain, they cut the VAT, their version of the GST. Is that the tax cut Prime Minister Harper shouldn’t have made? Like the “other countries have been doing…”?)

But, if spending and tax cuts provided stimulus, and the Tories have been spending and cutting taxes, how did we get into a recession. The reason is simple: all that spending doesn’t really provide stimulus, and tax cuts provide some, but minimal. When government spends money, it must first take it out of the economy, there is no stimulus, just money moving from one area of the economy to another, usually from productive to non-productive.

As for the idea of building roads. There are only so many machines capable of building them, so many people capable of operating what machines there are. If you start throwing money into road building what you end up with is not more people working, more roads built, but more expensive roads and the people who work on them making more money.

So Prime Minister Harper, save us the nonsense about stimulus. Let the government fall, let John McCallum tender a $35B deficit budget, and fight them hard when their coalition eventually falls.

pimply minions of bureaucracy, Politicians acting badly, Pompous Igghead, Silly Liberals pimply minions of bureaucracy

In the news in the last week, the release of some tapes by the Nixon Library of conversations prior to a Dec 6, 1971 between then President Nixon and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. It is the same meeting after which Nixon famously (and perceptively) referred to Trudeau as a “pompous egghead.”

The same week, several commentators were comparing current Prime Minister Stephen Harper with Richard Nixon.

Finally, this week the Liberals anointed Michael Ignatieff to be their fearless one. Some have even go so far as to compare Ignatieff to Trudeau.

At Home in Hespeler looks forward to the day when Stephen Harper refers to Michael Ignatieff as a “pompous igghead.”

Pompous Igghead