All eyes on Ignatieff

[PanaEng]

Great discussion and informative!

From Ignatieff's side of the fence, the question is the mirror image; how to rebuild the Liberal Party. To my uneducated mind, the simple solution might just be to "purge" the opposing wing of the party, but that is only about 1/3 of the problem; finding and articulating a philosophy that resonates with all Canadians should be job one (for every party), and building the resource base of funds and party members to do the work is also badly needed.

Certainly a "purge" would allow the creation of a unifying philosophy and platform to take place (how it resonates with all Canadians is another matter), and I suspect the unveiling of a real, sound and coherent platform based on an underlying philosophy will do wonders in terms of attracting members, money and resources.

I agree with you on the need for some cleansing in the Liberal party.  A purge, to be pallatable to the public, has to be done after a solid policy and vision  are in place and with enough time before an election to get the spots filled up and the new faces put on display.

cheers

 

[Brad Sallows]

If Ignatieff is really the intellectual some claim him to be*, he can start by explaining how he is going to stop the unnecessary deficit spending dead in its tracks and start whacking great chunks off the net federal debt instead of parading around pretending that the December Coalition's spending goals do not belong to the Liberals and that the Liberals are exemplary managers of the nation's finances.  So far I see proposals for halfway reform of EI and for national child care, the latter undoubtedly favourable to voters in Quebec: Quebec would greatly appreciate any additional federal transfers of funds (preferably a net gain from the rest of Canada) into its existing child care program which it will continue to insist it run quite independently of any federal interference.  It's not hard to buy votes in Quebec with dollars from outside Quebec.

*I've read some of his books; I have concluded that entry into politics has adversely compromised his abilities.  If he isn't going to perform to his abilities, he isn't needed.

 

[ModlrMike]

So much for uniting the country:

LINK


Michael Ignatieff says the coalition would have deeply divided Canadians
Published: Sunday, May 10, 2009 | 9:21 PM ET
Canadian Press Jessica Murphy, THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - If the proposed coalition of opposition parties had come to power last year it would have deeply and enduringly divided Canadians, says Michael Ignatieff.

In Montreal on Sunday to promote his most recent book, the federal Liberal leader also said the coalition came at a time when the party's right to govern would have been called into question after one of the worst election results in its history.


PS: Michael... NO party has the RIGHT to govern!

 

[Brad Sallows]

Good of him to say so after he signed the document and failed to openly oppose and denounce the coalition.

 

[ModlrMike]

As an interesting aside, I notice that there is no ability for readers to comment on the article on the CBC website. Surely such a reversal of opinion for the Liberals is worthy of comment?

 

[a_majoor]

As an interesting aside, I notice that there is no ability for readers to comment on the article on the CBC website. Surely such a reversal of opinion for the Liberals is worthy of comment?

The Dear Leader is infallible. Nothing to see here, move right along...............

 

[a_majoor]

How important is "Just Visiting"?

http://unambig.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/further-examination-of-ignatieff-and-just-visiting/

Further Examination Of Ignatieff And “Just Visiting”
May 23, 2009 — Raphael Alexander

iggy

I’ve been thinking about the Conservative advertisements regarding Michael Ignatieff’s “34 year” absence from Canada quite a lot since I first saw them. In fact, odd as it may sound, I’ve been thinking about them despite previously saying that they would be ineffective. How is it that something I wrote off so quickly could still be swimming around inside my brain?

Well, the main thing I’ve been stuck on is whether a Canadian-born citizen, which there is no doubt that Michael Ignatieff is, can somehow become less qualified to lead a country by being absent for thirty years. Because he did not leave the country until he was 31-years old, he certainly spent the majority of his formative years in Canada. It was the next 30 years that make people wonder whether his understanding of our nation could be considered informed enough to represent our people.

I believe that it’s a fair enough question posed by the Conservative Party, even if their motives aren’t based upon receiving a genuine answer. Michael Ignatieff’s family emigrated from Russia during the Bolshevik revolution, so he is, like many Canadians of European descent, firmly established in this country. In my case, my grandfather’s grandfather immigrated here from Scotland, so my family is also rooted deeply in Canada. Because I try to work out things I don’t understand by putting myself in that position, I’ve tried to imagine what would happen if I, a 34-year-old, left Canada for 30 years, and what impression that might leave upon me and my qualifications to represent Canadians in office.

At first I thought that it wouldn’t make much of a difference. I was born a Canadian, all of my family lives here, and I would always return without being changed from the fundamental way that I’ve been raised. In fact the very idea that returning to my birth nation and being treated differently by Canadians, insinuated as being somehow “less Canadian”, gave me a fair sense of inner anger, particularly because of the long history of my family here.

But then I spoke to my wife about it. She’s apolitical, but she does hold opinions on politics if pressed. I asked her the same hypothetical question, and she said that being Canadian isn’t a question of a bloodline, but of being a participant in your country. It doesn’t matter if my family arrived here over 150 years ago, or 5 years ago, so long as I participate in mainstream Canadian society, embrace Canadian values and customs, and have an understanding of our people. She’s right. My mistake had been in assuming that because Michael Ignatieff’s birthright as a Canadian citizen will always enable him to claim the same rights and equality as any other Canadian, that it would also enable him to claim the right to speak for us as well. It doesn’t.

If I left Canada today and returned in 2039, things could be so much different from what it is now that I’m sure I would scarcely understand it. There would probably be a process of readjusting, a sense of “culture shock” of adapting to my old homeland, and a genuine confusion as to what Canadians have become. Because a culture is not static; because it changes and grows and shapes itself slowly over time, it would be foolish to assume that the Canada of 2039 would be the same as the Canada of 2009. Just as the Canada that Michael Ignatieff left in 1978, is entirely different than the one he returned to in 2005.

The Canada that Mr.Ignatieff left was in the hands of Pierre Trudeau; the Soviets were a powerful enemy of Canada; and the CBC became the first broadcaster in the world to use an orbiting satellite for television service. He missed the defining events in Canadian history of everything that occurred in the past 25 years, both the horrible moments and tragedies, as well as the glorious and wonderful ones. Practically all of my experiences, and all that I understand as a Canadian, was missed during Mr.Ignatieff’s self-imposed exile to academia in Britain. And while that doesn’t make him any “less” Canadian, as he contends in his video response, it does raise the question of whether he is qualified to speak for all Canadians.

The Conservatives have tried to argue that Michael Ignatieff is “just visiting”, and that his motives for politics are selfish. That remains a subject for considerable debate. While I wouldn’t begrudge a man’s desire to return to Canada to serve his own people, I do think that there is a question of what his personal motives are. Is he back to “serve” or to “save” Canadians? Is he here to lead a people he was not present with for decades? The fact is that in 2004 the Liberals dispatched organizers to attempt to lure Michael Ignatieff away from Harvard University on the promise that they would back him for the leadership if Paul Martin retired from politics. Clearly this is a man not interested in being a mere Philistine of the underclass.

As he said to Peter C. Newman in a Maclean’s interview published on April 6, 2006:

“Sometimes you want to increase your influence over your audience by appropriating their voice, but it was a mistake. Every single one of the students from 85 countries who took my courses at Harvard knew one thing about me: I was that funny Canadian.”

Which begs the question: is Mr.Ignatieff now trying to increase his influence over Canadians by once again appropriating their voice?

I think that if he spent a few more years getting to know his former country again, serving the people, and catching up on all that he missed during his long time away, it would go a long way toward refuting the perception that he’s only here for his own aggrandizement. There have been leaders throughout history who have gone into exile and returned to lead to greatness: Mahatma Ghandi is a famous example. But great leaders have always had to earn the right to claim that they do represent their people, and so in that respect, Michael Ignatieff has a long journey ahead of him.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"Hi, I'm a Liberal Prime Ministerial hopeful.  You've been paying EI premiums for (check one):
[ ] 10 years
[ ] 20 years
[ ] 30 years or more
and I need to use your contributions to buy the votes of people who work for 9 weeks*.  Vote for me."


*about the length of a high school student's summer job

 

[a_majoor]

Although the writer is talking about a different leader, Ignatieff and the "young Dauphin" Trudeau also fit the description. Even Taliban Jack Layton has a (sort of) resume and a clear philosophical position; I don't agree with him or his views, but at least I know where he stands:

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YTYzYzI0NGYzNDMzMzIwOGZlNzc3M2VjMzE2ZWUxYzE=

Burke and Obama
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) had a lot to say about the Obama administration.

By Thomas Sowell

The other day I sought a respite from current events by rereading some of the writings of the 18th-century British statesman Edmund Burke. But it was not nearly as big an escape as I had thought it would be.

When Burke wrote of his apprehension about “new power in new persons,” I could not help thinking of the new powers that have been created by which a new president of the United States — a man with zero experience in business — can fire the head of General Motors and tell banks how to run their businesses.

Not only is Barack Obama new to the presidency, he is new to running any organization. One of Burke’s fears was that “we may place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried.”

Neither eloquence nor zeal is a substitute for experience, according to Burke. He said, “eloquence may exist without a proportionate degree of wisdom.” As for zeal, Burke said: “It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance that it is directed by insolent passion.”

The Obama administration’s back-and-forth on the question whether American intelligence agents who forced information out of captured terrorist leaders will be subject to legal jeopardy — even though they were told at the time that what they were doing was not only legal but a service to the nation — came to mind when reading Burke’s warning about the dangers of continuing to change the rules and values by which people lived. Burke asked how we could expect a sense of honor to exist when “no man could know what would be the test of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin”?

The current drive to take from “the rich” for the benefit of others came to mind when reading Burke’s warning against creating a situation where “any one description of citizens should be brought to regard any of the others as their proper prey.”

He also warned that “those who attempt to level, never equalise.” What they end up doing is concentrating power in their own hands — and Burke saw such new powers as dangerous, even if they were used only sparingly at first.

He said, “the true danger is, when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients and by parts.” He also said: “It is by lying dormant a long time, or being at first very rarely exercised, that arbitrary power steals upon a people.”

People who don't like “the rich” or “big business” or the banks may be happy that President Obama is sticking it to them. But such arbitrary powers can be turned on anybody. As John Donne said: “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” There is a lot of wisdom in those words.

The Constitution of the United States set out to limit the powers of the federal government, but judges have greatly eroded those limitations over the years, and the dispensing of bailout money has allowed the Obama administration to exercise powers that the Constitution never bestowed.

Edmund Burke understood that, no matter what form of government you have, in the end the character of those who wield the powers of government is crucial. He said: “Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state.”

He also said, “of all things, we ought to be the most concerned who and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us.” He feared particularly the kind of man “whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with it” — the kind of man “who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends.” Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and others come to mind.

The biggest challenge to America — and to the world — today is the danger of Iran with nuclear weapons. President Obama is acting as if this is something he can finesse with talks or deals. Worse yet, he may think it is something we can live with.

Burke had something to say about things like that as well: “There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.” Acting — not talking.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

 

[a_majoor]

More on how Ignatieff really thinks:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/a-telling-take-on-yellow-quill/article1190237/

A telling take on Yellow Quill

Ignatieff's melodramatic interpretation deserves second thought

Lysiane Gagnon
Last updated on Friday, Jun. 19, 2009 08:05PM EDT

The story of Christopher Pauchay is well known. It's been recounted in the media across the country. Before we see what kind of sappy tale Michael Ignatieff made of it, let's recall the horrible events that unfolded during the night of Jan. 29, 2008.

Mr. Pauchay, a resident of the Yellow Quill reservation in northern Saskatchewan, left his house in the middle of the night as a blizzard was sweeping through, driving the temperature down to -50. He apparently wanted to go to his sister's house - the reason is unclear since he was extremely inebriated and lost track of what happened.

In any case, he took with him his two girls, aged 15 months and three years, dressed only in T-shirts and diapers. Outside, he lost his way and eventually dropped the girls in the snow.

He somehow managed to get to a nearby house, where he passed out. His daughters were found many hours later, frozen to death. Mr. Pauchay, who has been sentenced to three years in jail - a merciful sentence - had already been convicted of 52 other offences, including assault on his wife.

Now let's see how Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff describes these events, in the introduction of True Patriot Love, an otherwise interesting essay about his maternal ancestors and his own dreams about Canada.

“Imagining what we share is not easy. Imagining this land is never just to imagine it as it appears to you alone. It is to imagine it as an Inuit person might see it ... To imagine it as a citizen is to imagine it as a resident of Yellow Quill reservation in Saskatchewan would have had to imagine it, this Canada where two half-naked children died in a snow-covered field in the subarctic darkness because their father tried to take the sick little girls to his parents and never made it, and all you can hope is that death was as mercilessly quick as the cold can make it. What does a resident of Yellow Quill imagine, what do we, Canadians, imagine our country to be, the morning we learn that children have perished this way? It is surely more than just a tragic story of one family. It is a story about us.”
In this melodramatic reinterpretation, Mr. Pauchay is turned into a devoted father who is a victim of “Canada” (“it is a story about us”).

There is no mention of alcohol consumption, nor of Mr. Pauchay's own responsibility in the death of his daughters, who, under the pen of Mr. Ignatieff, seems to have been hit by some mysterious calamity, like a sudden avalanche.

This is an acute case of the syndrome brilliantly described by French writer Pascal Bruckner in Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc - about the self-hating, teary-eyed White Man who carries on his shoulders all the sins of his ancestors and who ends up patronizing and dehumanizing the people of the Third World (in this case the aboriginals) by refusing them the status of responsible adults.

Mr. Ignatieff's reinterpretation of the Pauchay story wouldn't be worth a second thought if he weren't leader of the Liberal Party and possibly Canada's next prime minister.

The Liberals have already promised to act on the Kelowna Accord, negotiated under former prime minister Paul Martin, which would transfer some $5-billion to aboriginal communities for purposes such as health, housing and education. One wonders whether an Ignatieff government would make certain that the first nations chiefs are accountable to their communities and to the taxpayers about the way they use the money.

Under Jean Chrétien's government, Indian Affairs minister Robert Nault tabled a bill aimed at introducing some basic democratic rules into the governance of the reservations. The bill was forgotten as soon as Mr. Martin came to power.

He was so eager to please the leaders of the first nations that he gave them everything they wanted: a great deal of money with no strings attached. It would be regrettable if Mr. Ignatieff followed the same path

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post, is a column that, inadvertently, makes a very important point:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=859203b4-2b59-4884-8b43-89f833df2712

Once an intellectual

Colby Cosh
National Post
Published: Friday, July 10, 2009

Imade a curious discovery the morning I sat down to write this column, one that is embarrassing for a professional user of language to admit. There is a word in my vocabulary that I've been using somewhat irresponsibly, without a full appreciation of its meaning and force. It's "claptrap." If you're like me, you might think of this as an onomatopoeic word representing mere noise. I had never really noticed the "clap" part. It turns out that "claptrap" is a fairly precise technical term from the 18th-century English stage. It means a line or contrivance designed to "trap" an audience into applauding.

Windy expressions of patriotic sentiment were favourite claptraps of the day. They remain so now in the one profession that still uses claptraps in the original sense. For while it is no longer considered proper to interrupt theatrical performances with applause before the curtain, "claptrap" is still a practical term of art in the preparation of political speeches.

Which brings us to Michael Ignatieff. Where else? On Wednesday night, Ignatieff gave the Liberal International's annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture at the National Liberal Club in London, England. Ascending such a podium seemed like a promising opportunity for Ignatieff to reassert his status as an international star of Berlin's class, a man capable of handling and defending serious ideas in a rigorous way. Instead, he served mush -- Canadian claptrap about how liberalism is this, but then also that, but then other things must always be kept in mind too, and really it's all a balancing act, blah blah blah.

Of course Ignatieff is a professional politician now, and thus can never, ever state any interesting truth in direct, unornamented English. This is the core job description of the intellectual, but it honestly wasn't one of his strong points even before he got into politics. The really disappointing thing is that Ignatieff's talk gave little indication that he had ever wrestled with the questions that concerned Isaiah Berlin, let alone spent countless hours with the man combing over the most minuscule details of his life and career.

Consider Berlin's enduring and crucial distinction between "negative liberties," which include the classical-liberal restraints upon civil authority, and "positive liberties," or claims upon society to some object or service like education or health care. Berlin warned, in the darkest hour of the Cold War, that the latter sort of guarantee, which presumes to impose a common ideal of the good upon men, presents a much greater danger of social catastrophe than the former. He believed that freedom of action cannot go entirely unrestrained, but that it still represents a "truer and more humane ideal" in human affairs than the desire to organize society according to some collective notion of justice.

Ignatieff is known to be a non-Berlinian, but his speech -- almost crassly, under the circumstances -- goes out of its way to emphasize the equivalence between positive and negative liberties. We liberals, he says, "put freedom first but we are not libertarians." Having led off the whole speech with the heartening statement that liberals "believe in limited government," he adds that "The institutions that create freedom include, but are not limited to, public education for all, free access to medical care, retirement pensions in old age, assistance for the disabled, public security in our streets and the protections afforded by a sovereign nation state."

Here we have the negative and positive liberties thrown together hugger-mugger, with Ignatieff unwilling to specify (much less defend) bounds on top-down social ordering. It's an awfully unlimited sort of limited government. Why is free medicare on the list, one might ask, but not free birthday cake? I can imagine credible answers to this question, but all Ignatieff gives, all he has ever given as either a private intellectual or a politician, are endless non-negotiable grocery lists.

The obtuseness here is serious enough to make one wonder how the speech was really received. At one point Ignatieff asserts that "A person discriminated against because of their gender, race, creed, sexual orientation or economic circumstance is not free." Assuming Ignatieff is referring here to private discrimination, he knows perfectly well that a victim of it may still be free in the "negative" Berlinian sense. Ignatieff followed this up with a classic claptrap: "Liberals believe that freedom is indivisible..." Surely the audience was stunned to hear this uttered at an event in honour of the man best known precisely for dividing freedom into two clearly demarcated species?

By this standard, Isaiah Berlin could hardly have been a good liberal at all, or at least an Ignatieff Liberal. A shame, really, and the shame would not have been Berlin's.

[email protected]

The important bit is not about Michael Ignatieff, rather it is the reminder that there are liberties and liberties. The all important negative liberties are, broadly, those which protect us from something (such as the power of the church or the state) by requiring the absence of the coercive powers of large collectives. The positive liberties impose upon us all a requirement to provide something to others, maybe to ourselves and others – public education and health care, for example. No one denies that some (many? even most?) of the “public goods” (such as education) are good things, beneficial to society at large and so on but they are, still, impositions.

Just as we have negative (good) and positive (sometimes not so good) liberties we also have, I remind you, real and rubbish rights. The latter are found in the bottom half of the atrocious United nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Read Articles 22 and beyond. Are we really willing to send Canada’s soldiers to fight and die so that others may have a right to “rest and leisure” or to “enjoy the arts”? Rights, real rights, are those for which we ought to be willing to fight and die, or to send our sons and daughters into battle. Liberals, of the Ignatieff variety, have forgotten the basic tenets of liberalism.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is a quite devastating critique of Michael Ignatieff, far better than the Bogus Peacekeeping matter:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/ignatieff-plays-fast-and-loose-with-liberal-creed/article1226710/

Ignatieff plays fast and loose with liberal creed
In many ways, liberals and conservatives have swapped principles over the last 100 years. But Gladstone reminds us that the great leaders tend to practise the best of both philosophies

Neil Reynolds

Wednesday, Jul. 22, 2009

In delivering his Isaiah Berlin Lecture in the National Liberal Club's Gladstone Library in London earlier this month, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff advanced a rather lame definition of liberalism, bereft of either the principles or the wit articulated more than a century ago by the great Liberal prime minister for whom the library was named. William Ewart Gladstone, four-time prime minister of Victorian Britain and four-time chancellor of the exchequer, memorably described liberalism as "trust of the people tempered by prudence" - and conservatism as "distrust of the people tempered by fear."

This was political philosophy nicely expressed. Aside from the parallel structure and economy of words, each definition was smart enough to pass as aphorism and candid enough to pass as truth. Each retains a certain ring of authenticity. As a liberal, you may well favour government of the people, by the people and for the people - but you know that you've got to keep a sharp eye on them, too. As a Tory, you may well distrust the masses - but you know that you need half of them, more or less, to form a majority government.

In his turn at bat, Mr. Ignatieff defined the two political philosophies this way: "A liberal's disagreement with conservatives comes down to this: We both seek freedom but liberals believe no one can achieve it alone." Really, Mr. Ignatieff. And conservatives do? The assertion is absurd.

Where do you begin with this kind of loose lexicography? Who are these conservatives who think that freedom is purely an individual responsibility? Where are these solitary armies of one?

Contrary to Mr. Ignatieff's formulation, conservatives are now more apt than liberals to endorse the radical 18th-century liberal assumption that people are born free - and deprived of this innate sovereignty by others, most often by government itself. They are also now more apt than liberals, speaking of freedom, to fund properly and collectively the country's military forces.

In his remarks in the Gladstone Library, Mr. Ignatieff insists that 21st-century liberals still believe in limited government but defines the limits in a remarkably expansionist way.

Oddly, he implies that only public institutions create or bestow freedom, a curious proposition - and then proceeds to stipulate that limited government is technically limitless: "The institutions that create freedom include, but are not limited to, public education for all, free access to medical care, retirement pensions in old age, assistance for the disabled, public security in our streets and the protections afforded by a sovereign nation state."

You can drive an 18-wheeler through the innocuous escape clause - "but are not limited to" - in this list of "institutions" that are deemed compatible with limited government. In fact, though, limited government does require limits. History regards Gladstone as a great prime minister because he persistently and consistently advanced the revolutionary liberal principles of limited government and its corollary tenets: fiscal discipline, low taxation, free trade, free-market economics and the devolution of power. These are the limits that Mr. Ignatieff endorses when he pledges fidelity to "the enduring principles of the liberal creed."

For Gladstone, limited government was itself a matter of prudence - based upon the inherent instinct of government to centralize power. Writing in 1894 at age 85, toward the end of his long career, he expressed this paramount principle in melancholic terms. "It is not by the State that man can be regenerated," he said, "and the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with."

In other words, you can't trust any government - Liberal or Tory, democratic or aristocratic. He lamented the incipient corruption of both parties by people who sought "to take into the hands of the State the business of the individual man."

With his list of sacrosanct monopolistic institutions, Mr. Ignatieff exemplifies this intellectual corruption. Did public schools bestow freedom on Canadians? Did medicare? If so, the Canadians who created the Canadian nation were slaves or serfs. If so, the Canadians who sacrificed their lives in two world wars went to their deaths as slaves or serfs. What is it that's truly important here? Is it education - or the monolithic institutions that govern the classrooms of the country? Is it health care itself - or the monopoly institution that insures health care services? Would Canadians be less free with more choice in schools or in health care insurance? For that matter, would Canadians be less free with competitive bus service and private garbage collection?

Mr. Ignatieff's address in the Gladstone Library was, nevertheless, inadvertently helpful. Principles do warp in the pursuit of power. In many ways, liberals and conservatives have swapped principles over the last 100 years. But Gladstone reminds us that the great leaders tend to practise the best of both philosophies.

Arthur Balfour, a Conservative prime minister who followed Gladstone (1902-1905), described this as a Gladstone trait: "[Gladstone] was, in everything except the essentials, a tremendous Tory."

This astute observation should tell Mr. Ignatieff everything he needs to know to gain power: Don't mess around with the essential principles of the liberal creed.

Reynolds is dead on in saying: “The [Ignatieff’s] assertion is absurd.” “Mr. Ignatieff insists that 21st-century liberals still believe in limited government but defines the limits in a remarkably expansionist way.” and “ Mr. Ignatieff exemplifies this intellectual corruption. Did public schools bestow freedom on Canadians? Did medicare? If so, the Canadians who created the Canadian nation were slaves or serfs. If so, the Canadians who sacrificed their lives in two world wars went to their deaths as slaves or serfs.”

Ignatieff, and the Liberal Party of Canada as an institution, are intellectually corrupt and they are aided and abetted by an equally intellectually corrupt, lazy, ill educated, partisan (but not necessarily pro-Liberal) press corps – Mr. Reynolds being an exception who proves the rule.

Big L Liberals are not liberal, at al. They, like Jack Layton, are, really, conservatives. Stephen Harper would, I think, like to be a real (small l) liberal – in other words a worthy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada – but he wants to govern Canada so he has to be a real conservative: a statist and a collectivist. Pity.

 

[a_majoor]

The one thing that makes me discount Mr Ignatieff as leadership material is the way he runs away from his past positions.

The Bogus Peacekeeper speech was mostly true (it was the Liberal Party rather than all Canadians who manipulated the language and values of peacekeeping....), and if he was man enough to stick to his guns and argue the position I would be vastly impressed. (Of course I would be equally impressed if Mr Harper took real Conservative positions on taxation and government spending and was willing to stand for those positions by word and deed as well.....).

Now it seems he is using his intellectualism to throw smoke around his past positions, present location and future intentions.

DS assessment: ineffective

 

[Edward Campbell]

This column, reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is more about Prince Michael, himself, than about the election he says he wants:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ignatieff-wants-to-be-a-warrior-king/article1284955/

Ignatieff wants to be a warrior king
The Liberal Leader can only bluff and bluster so many times without looking silly – and that's why we're going to the polls

Margaret Wente

Saturday, Sep. 12, 2009

The new Liberal campaign ad features a shot of Iggy standing in the woods. The long grass is dappled by sunlight streaming through the trees. He tells us we need a government that thinks big. He doesn't look much like a warrior king. He looks like a Harvard professor who has done a bunch of TV that educated people watch.

But a warrior king is what he longs to be. He's discovering that this is much, much tougher than being a philosopher king. “I've been a spectator for a lot of my life, but this is about being an actor and talking responsibilities,” he explains to Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker. “It's hugely adversarial. It's combat. And you have to be ready for combat, and you have to lead troops into a kind of rhetorical battle. And you've got to show fight. This is not a seminar.”

Here's how he shows fight. He says things like, “Mr. Harper, your time is up.” He says: “If you mess with me, I will mess with you until I'm done.” And: “I can take a punch and I can dish a punch out.” He sounds like he's been overdosing on spaghetti westerns.

The trouble is that up till now it's been all talk. You can only bluff and bluster so many times without looking silly. That's why we're having an election, even though voters would prefer a case of herpes. We're having an election so that Michael Ignatieff can show fight.

Some philosopher kings can become warrior kings. Pierre Trudeau was one. Unlike Iggy, he had a set of firm ideas about where to lead the country. He never tried to play down the fact that he was an elitist. Love him or hate him, you knew exactly who he was. Even Stéphane Dion had an idea, although it was a dumb one.

Iggy's big ideas are rather hazy. He seems to want us to hand him the job without explaining what they are. His political skills are still sketchy, in that he hasn't mastered the essential art of ducking questions while pretending to answer them. The other day, when pressed to explain how he'd clean up the deficit without raising taxes, he stalled, then said, “Wait and see.”

It's not hard not to conclude that Canada is a stage set for Mr. Ignatieff's fantasy life. He has always been torn between being a man of letters and a man of action, pulled between the ivory tower and the battlefield. He has spent time in nasty war zones. He has dabbled in journalism, because journalism is more exciting than the seminar room. He has written novels, which range from awful to pretty good and feature troubled characters who seem not unlike him.

But ultimately, journalists are spectators too. Although Mr. Ignatieff has a reputation for ruthlessness, he is really a romantic idealist who craves excitement and the romance of action. That's why he couldn't resist becoming a player.

Unfortunately, observers who become players tend to lack survival skills. Mr. Ignatieff himself wrote an entire novel on this theme, called Charlie Johnson in the Flames. Charlie (another anguished soul) is a veteran war correspondent in a place very like the Balkans, where Mr. Ignatieff spent a lot of time. Consumed by outrage and a sort of suicidal idealism, he abandons his professional detachment to track down a war criminal who is responsible for a terrible atrocity. The story does not end well. (Warning: Plot spoiler here.) In the climactic scene, the villain laughs at Charlie's naïveté and throws him off a balcony to his death.

I fear that something like this will be Iggy's fate. Despite his efforts to study up, he is not a natural-born politician. Neither is his opponent, Stephen Harper. But Mr. Harper is very shrewd, and has had more time in the arena.

Here's another example of Mr. Ignatieff's lack of instinct. He had a golden opportunity this summer to jump into the U.S. health-care debate. He could have used his connections to go on Fox and CNN to praise the virtues of the much-maligned Canadian system (while hinting to the home front that Stephen Harper secretly agrees with Sarah Palin). He had a chance to look like Captain Canada. But I guess he was busy.

Mr. Ignatieff is aware that he's no natural. As he told his friend Adam Gopnik, great politicians are like great hockey players. “What is it that a great politician knows?” he wondered. “What is that form of knowledge? The great ones have a skill that is just jaw-dropping, and I'm trying to learn that.”

Good luck to him with that. And once I figure out what Karen Kain knows, I'll join the National Ballet.

The paradox of Iggy is that he is phenomenally self-conscious and ferociously smart, but also, at some level, clueless. He figures he can pick up whatever skills are required, even if the instincts aren't there. After all, hasn't he succeeded at everything he's done? And if the role requires a show of sincerity, then he'll fake it. “Nothing is personal in politics, because politics is theatre,” he said once. “It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel.” What he did actually feel was that the people who flattered him and wooed him back to Canada might be right. They told him that only he could lead the Liberal Party and the nation.

Stephen Harper does not deserve such luck. His opponent is yet another man who vastly overestimates his own abilities. Mr. Ignatieff is looking more and more like Mr. Dion, without the accent.

I have said, elsewhere, that Prince Michael threatens an election because he understands that he must not be Dionized or he will join Edward Blake and Celine Stéphane Dion in the tiny pantheon of Liberal leaders who never became prime minister. (George Brown doesn’t count; he was never more than interim leader in 1867.) But, if we go to an election in 2009 and if, as I suspect he will, he finishes second, again, then he is likely "out" of Stornoway and into that sad little group of Liberal losers.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and mail is another critique that continues to wonder: which Michael Ignatieff? and why Michael Ignatieff?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/michael-ignatieff-is-he-just-acting/article1284872/

Michael Ignatieff: Is he just acting?
All the political world's a stage, but the voters still can't decide whether the Liberal Leader's performance is believable

Denis Smith

Monday, Sep. 14, 2009

If the latest profile of Michael Ignatieff (in the Sept. 7 issue of The New Yorker) leaves its U.S. audience confused about why he wants to be our next prime minister, it will leave Canadians even more mystified.

In the profile, expatriate Canadian essayist Adam Gopnik tells us that he has known the Liberal Leader for a long time. “He had never struck me as a natural politician, the kind of Homo clintonius who feels the need to woo and win every table,” Mr. Gopnik says. He wonders what led Mr. Ignatieff to seek power, and how that experience has changed him.

Mr. Gopnik's encounters with the Liberal Leader over the summer have convinced him that Mr. Ignatieff has undergone a profound transformation. He is no longer “retiring and precise, professorial in demeanour,” with “a vibe of virtue rather than of ambition.” Instead, he has become a calculating actor. “He hadn't become more timid or cautious; he had become, in a professorial way, more theatrical, and more cunning. … To trade philosophy for politics is to trade observation for acting. Everything becomes a kind of performance – he was onstage at every moment … all in the search to become, for a moment in time, the written rather than the writer.”

This slightly chilling insight reflects Mr. Ignatieff's own emphasis on his change of life. Before politics, he tells Mr. Gopnik, he was merely a spectator; now, as an actor, he is responsible for his words. The world of the academic/writer was one thing; the world of the actor/politician is another.

The claim is not new. In his rambling 2007 New York Times Magazine apology for promoting the war in Iraq, Mr. Ignatieff also insisted that politics is theatre, where a politician must “pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel.” It is a world of “lunatic literalism” where “all that matters is what you said, not what you meant.”

In 2007, he was bruised and shocked; by now, he is used to politics. “You have to be ready for combat,” he tells Mr. Gopnik, “and you have to lead troops into a kind of rhetorical battle. And you've got to show fight. This is not a seminar.”

When he wrote the New York Time Magazine article, Mr. Ignatieff was trying to explain his mistake in supporting George W. Bush's war. The reason, he said, was that, as a writer, he stood apart and could afford to be irresponsible. No one could hold him to account. But as a politician, he has to pay the price of his words. He repeats this neat distinction to Mr. Gopnik.

There are two things wrong with Mr. Ignatieff's contrast between thinker and politician.

First, he is disingenuous about his previous role. When he wrote in The New York Times Magazine and elsewhere in support of war, preventive detention and “coercive interrogation,” he was not leading one of his academic seminars. He was in politics, seeking to encourage and persuade. As a public intellectual, he has always been in politics. If he did not know it then, he was naive; if he does not know it now, he is obtuse. Any academic who writes for the wider public should know that. His role as an academic was no excuse for his errors of judgment.

Second, his conception of politics is stunningly inadequate. Politics may, in one sense, be theatre and rhetorical battle, but it is not just performance. There must be authenticity behind the façade. The great actor is not just in it for the applause; the aspiring politician should not be in it just for the glory. Voters can make the distinction, and wise politicians know it.

So far, Mr. Ignatieff's performance leaves us with a sense of lingering distrust. As he admits to Mr. Gopnik, he can understand this. He knows that people are still wondering: “Can I trust this guy?” And he hasn't given us the answer.

The public is uncertain about him because what we see is the actor playing at politics – or the academic thinking about it – not the politician doing it. He is too aware of himself, too diffident one moment and too exaggeratedly assertive the next, trying out his performance as though it is all a theoretical game. Politics, as he says, is a difficult trade, and his real education in it is yet to come.

Denis Smith is professor emeritus of political science and author of Ignatieff's World Updated: Iggy Goes to Ottawa.

I think Prof. Smith has diagnosed Prince Michael very well. ”What we see,” according to Prof. Smith, ”is the actor playing at politics – or the academic thinking about it – not the politician doing it.” Earlier, in an interview (linked) in Vancouver he said: ”He's a good writer. He's obviously intelligent. He has a political tin ear,” and he ”still has a condescending air, a superior air” that is not ”going to go over well in a national campaign.”

 

[Journeyman]

Margaret Wente
Saturday, Sep. 12, 2009
---
Iggy's big ideas are rather hazy. He seems to want us to hand him the job without explaining what they are.

And there, in a nutshell, is the Liberal's problem.

In recent conversations with friends holding varying degrees of political interest, the consensus is this is no more than a Liberal power grab -- no rationale; no substance; no resonance with the people. So far, the closest to a substantive Liberal message is "Harper - bad; I want to be boss."

Mind you, if/when the election comes, the local default setting will likely remain, "Vote for the Peter Milliken (Lib.) of your choice." *

Even Stéphane Dion had an idea, although it was a dumb one.

:rofl:




* Peter Milliken has represented Kingston and the Islands since 1988, when he unseated long-time Conservative member, Flora MacDonald.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wonder is Iggy will not be renamed Icarus after the election - IF, indeed, it comes?

Flying to near to the sun is not recommended for novices.

 

[observor 69]

Journeyman
"* Peter Milliken has represented Kingston and the Islands since 1988, when he unseated long-time Conservative member, Flora MacDonald."

And a Queen's grad to boot. Yesss!  :nod:

 

[Journeyman]

Journeyman
"* Peter Milliken has represented Kingston and the Islands since 1988, when he unseated long-time Conservative member, Flora MacDonald."

And a Queen's grad to boot. Yesss!  :nod:

Yes, but I'm sure he has some redeeming characteristics as well. 

 

[a_majoor]

The best part about this is getting to the end and reading who the author is!

http://thealbertaardvark.blogspot.com/2009/09/must-read-scathing-criticism-of.html

A Must Read Scathing Criticism of Ignatieff
An absolute must read on Michael Ignatieff.

Who is the author you ask. Well you will find that out at the end of the post.

"It is not very often that one gets to witness a "leadership frontrunner" immolate his own candidacy so blithely, so recklessly, but if you click here and you peer inside, you will see the corpse of Michael Ignatieff’s vaulting ambition. He is done – and if he isn’t, he should be.

Now, it is true that I objected to the learned professor before reading this essay, posted over the weekend on Pierre Bourque’s site. I objected to the manner in which his supporters trampled on democracy in a Toronto riding – literally locking out opponents. I objected to his support of George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq. I objected to the fact that he mocked Canada (Link dead) during the three decades he was abroad, and that he likened Israeli policy to the fascism of apartheid. I objected to what I perceived to be breathtaking arrogance – calling Canada a "herbivorian boy scout" one day, then jetting up here to run it the next.

And then came this essay. Below I have culled a representative sampling of some the things Ignatieff says about torture in his just-published tour de force. His Kool Aid drinkers – and he has many already, rest assured – will bombard me with emails, braying and screeching that I quoted him out of context. But the fact is that they are his words. And the fact is that, in politics, voters and reporters are not patrician Harvard students, willing to keep quiet until the very end of the great man’s hour-long treatise, or until the end of a 10,000 word essay in the New York Times Magazine. They can be counted upon to object right away to the objectionable. Up here in the frosty herbivorian Boy Scout camp, all that it takes is a few sentences, usually, to permit a glimpse into what passes for a soul. We have that skill, boy scouts that we are.

That said, here’s Michael Ignatieff on torture. If you don’t read them now, you’ll be reading them enough during the next election campaign.

"…torture is not served by collapsing the distinction between coercive interrogation and torture. Both may be repugnant, but repugnance does not make them into the same thing."

"…necessity may require the commission of bad acts…"

"An outright ban on torture and coercive interrogation leave a conscientious security officer with little choice but to disobey the ban."

"…it must be the case that other acts of torture occur because interrogators believe, in good faith, that torture is the only way to extract information in a timely fashion…"

"The argument that torture and coercion do not work is contradicted by the dire frequency with which both practices occur."

And, finally, the epitaph:

"I am willing to get my hands dirty."

"I am willing to get my hands dirty." That much, it seems, is true."


Wow. There is a lot of info there to digest including the "herbivorian boy scout" comment which I have not heard of until reading this.


If you were thinking that the author of this is not big fan of Michael Ignatieff you would be wrong because today he is in fact a big booster of Ignatieff, but back on March 27, 2006 when this first appeared on his blog, it was obvious that the author Warren Kinsella was not the fan that he is today.