At Home in Hespeler

They say voters have short memories. I think there’s some truth to that, but only some. For instance, I well remember Bob Rae’s Ontario, the Rae Days, the dirt tax, Pink Floyd Laughren, arguing over Sunday shopping, for God’s sake. A couple of stories that have been hot in my part of the world lately, Toronto’s garbage and the mess that is Ontario’s doctor crisis, have it’s Genesis in those Rae days of yore.

But I had forgotten how dismal it was. I used to joke that the New Democratic Party was an oxymoron. It was New Democratic, or it was a Party, but it sure wasn’t both. NDP came to be known as No Damn Phun. I had forgotten that, until this morning.

It seems PM Harper set the cat in the Liberal budgie cage yesterday, saying of Michael Ignatieff’s recent comments on Israel:

I think this is consistent with the anti-Israeli position that has been taken by virtually all of the candidates for the Liberal leadership…

The response from this bit of political sport was quick, as the leadership wannabees all predictably condemned Harper’s comments (wouldn’t it have been refreshing if one had said, “hey, it’s politics, what did you expect Stephen Harper to say?”)

But it was Bob Rae who went off like a little girl in a spider store. Sounding like Shelly Martel after some male politician went on TV to show his pasty white ass, Rae used all of the following words in his ridiculous rant: “shameful”, “appalling”,”offensive”, “take profound exception”, “simplistic and divisive.”

Bob Rae’s New Democrats where consistently offended, appalled or took profound exception (although, sadly, they were rarely shamed). This is his/was their way of dealing with opponents, whining that they are unfair. What Rae never seemed to learn, even after getting pasty whitey handed to him by Mike Harris, is this sort of politics rarely works against someone who won’t take the bait, and Stephen Harper won’t take the bait.

It is instructive that Rae was not the only Liberal leadership hopeful who complained about Harper’s comments, most of them did. Yet not one pointed to a concrete example showing Harper is wrong.

Funniest Liberal of the day goes to Scott Brison, who complained he is Pro-Israel and Pro Hezbollah. Look Scott, you are either for the guys who walk into the cafe with the bomb strapped on them, or you are with the patrons of the cafe. You can’t really be pro-both.

Or as Confucius might say, “men who spend day straddling fences spend night with sore nuts.”

Brian Gardiner Uncategorized