Monday, December 01, 2008

In which I am unsympathetic

The Star:
Some within the party blame Giorno for enabling a prime minister whose political instincts tell him to lunge on an exposed Liberal jugular no matter what the consequences.

But those around the Prime Minister's Office have long said the prime minister is his own best strategist.

"At the end of the day, we all know who signed off on it," one Conservative said. "Everybody knows that this is the centre."

Some Tories have quietly suggested Harper himself conceived of and shepherded the party financing ploy to fruition, making it difficult for anyone to oppose the measure without fear.

But there didn't appear to be much dissension within Tory ranks last Wednesday, when journalists standing outside a hastily-called Conservative caucus meeting heard MPs applauding and cheering inside as they were briefed on the content of the fiscal update.
Was there anyone in the room who tried to pump the brakes before the car went over the cliff? Anyone? Bueller?

Duffy & Newman keep asking their guests what the government could do to avoid its fate. I'm betting the answer is nothing. I'm betting this because every single guest says, "nothing". Move on, guys.

Outside of the talking points, I wonder if a caucus revolt among the Tories might actually defuse this. Can the Conservative caucus sack the PM, replace him, and then proceed to fire Flaherty as well before Monday? Would that be sufficient? I certainly don't think anything short of that would work at this point.

3 comments:

Steve Muhlberger said...

Boy this fun. Like the whole country wirewalking without a net.

Anonymous said...

Wow - I leave the Intertoobz for a long US Thanksgiving weekend and you Canadians go crazy-awesome with your politics.

To suss out what's going on by analogy - from what I've read so far, it sounds like Harper was acting like a certain US Republican leader who had 50+1% support and thought he had a mandate to shove unpopular reforms past his opposition. Bush tried that with Social Security "reform" and had his ass handed to him. It seems like the difference here is that Harper didn't even have 50+1% support and his opposition actually has slightly more backbone than the Democrats here in the US and are perfectly willing to do something legal but unprecedented if it will remove someone that they've determined is a boil on the rump of their political landscape - and not incidentally teach the Conservatives a lesson about how one acts within a democratic system of government.

Is that about right? Or am I missing some subtlety here? I'm still trying to figure out exactly who the Governor General is and what this "prorogue" stuff means - wikipedia here I come, I guess.

--NonyNony

WesternGrit said...

Anon.: Dot on. Exactly.

As far as prorogue: It's nothing. Just a delay tactic. It is a Parliamentary procedure which allows the PM to shut down debate in the House for a time. The PM would still have to govern, meaning they would still have to reopen Parliament in the near future, and face the non-confidence vote at that time.