790...Mikey I Makes The New Yorker

The New Yorker is a magazine that serves that town and Barbara Jaffe in this morning's Calgary Herald and Vancouver Sun doesn't think that being profiled in said rag benefits the next Prime Minister of Canada.

She posits that being profiled in MacLeans is a good thing, sells Michael Ignatieff at the Tim Horton's and the Legion; being profiled in The New Yorker in an article called "The Return of the Native; A public intellectual remakes himself as a public servant" is not so saleable.

Still, the next PM makes a good point in the story, as reported by Ms. Jaffe, and that is, I am paraphrasing, Canadians don't really care about the intellectual capacity of their leader, their PM, as much as they care about his trustablility and integrity.

Who would you rather have babysit your kids?

I thought so.

WFDS

541...Tim Powers Doesn't Like Mikey I

Tim Powers is an Ottawa based Conservative Party hack, and I mean that in the nicest way.

He is also featured on CFRA [btw, it is a Farm Boy day!] panels discussing politics with Liberal hacks and NDP hacks. No Green Party hacks on those panels; shouldn't what's her name be complaining to the CRTC about that?

I digress.

Tim, er, Mr. Powers, wrote a seemingly thoughtful piece about the future Prime Minister of Canada, Michael Ignatieff's cabinet, buried in yesterday's Globe and Mail.

Le cut, le paste:

Iggy makes a cabinet?
Tim Powers

I know I did have a few beers last night, but when I woke up this morning to read
 Jane Taber's column about Michael Ignatieff apparently offering people cabinet
posts I thought I should have been a character in the movie The Hangover.
You know the one where the main players get so loaded that when they wake
up the next morning they can't remember what they did and how they changed
their worlds.

So a leader whose party has no platform; who at this point according to polls
 has lost what ever momentum he had in polls; who now in a recent Macleans interview
 is found to have trashed his party's Pearsonian peacekeeping traditions;
 is making a cabinet? And oh yes, he is the Leader of the Opposition,
 a mere technicality of course. This latest adventure is either
exceptionally audacious or the height of that Iggy arrogance that drives
 so many batty except it seems the great man himself and a few of his sycophants.

According to Taber's report: "The Liberal leader recently visited former B.C.
 attorney-general Wally Oppal, who was narrowly defeated in the May provincial
election, and offered him the justice portfolio if he were to run federally,
according to a source close to Mr. Oppal." If Jane's story is right
it appears that Iggy and his Liberals still haven't learned that
Canadians hate that entitlement attitude of theirs. Remember that
classic line from former Liberal minister David Dingwall:
"I am entitled to my entitlements." It was that frame of mind
that led to the sponsorship scandal, sank the Martin juggernaut
and put the Liberals on the bench.

Canadians do have this terrible expectation that people who seek
 public office work for their vote and offer some plans on what they might do.
 Presumably Iggy forgot about that while he was away. The Liberals don't have
 an inherit right to govern despite their Leader's current delusion.

In case it also slipped your mind Michael, in
 parliamentary democracies like Canada, there is a process called an
 election whereby those common folk known as the Canadian public
decide who becomes the government.

Not happy one bit, is Mr. Powers. And you thought I was snarky.

WFDS

408...Mike Duffy Er Senator Michael Duffy, Maroon

Honestly, how does a sub par TV host who worked cheap become a Senator? Not by knowing the way the Senate works as this cut and paste job from Maclean's illustrates.

The author is uncredited, as is the source but this is right on the money:

Mike Duffy has learned something while sitting in the Senate. Decades as a journalist and decades more as a sentient Canadian apparently did nothing to prepare Mike Duffy for the shocking revelation that awaited him upon being appointed to the upper chamber. As the Senator himself put it while traveling in Kelowna: "Once you get in there, you realize that every piece of legislation passed by Parliament has to go through the Senate prior to adoption. " Sweet bearded Jesus! Do the Fathers of Confederation know about this?? Someone alert the ghost of Adams Archibald! Wait - there's yet more that the intrepid Duffy has uncovered: "And the Senate rules are different than the House of Commons. Senate committees can't sit while the Senate is in session, so that puts you in the situation of having some pretty long days." Holy nutballs! Next thing you know we'll be finding out that, like the House of Commons, the Senate has its very own Speaker, Question Period and pervading sense of futility. But Duffy's trip out west was about more than revealing startling Parliamentary details previously known only to every child over the age of 12. He also talked a lot about wood. In fact, the front page of today's edition of The Daily News in Kamloops features the headline "Use More Wood, Senator Urges" - which is either a direct appeal by Mike Duffy to Canada's construction industry or Viagra's least effective slogan-spokesman combination ever. In the article, Duffy blows the lid off another state secret when he astutely observes, "We're surrounded by wood in Canada." With time to reflect, I'm sure he'd agree this wasn't the nicest way to refer to his new colleagues in the Senate. One final note from the Senator's journey of discovery: Some of you may remember all the way back to last week, when Duffy was going on about how he never really wanted to be a Senator but then, oh well, fine, twist my arm... and then how he was totally determined to sit as an independent because he wasn't the least bit partisan but then, oh well, fine, if you reeeeeeeally want me to be a Conservative... Read the following quote from Mike Duffy and see if you can spot the part where he comes across as a non-partisan, independent-minded member of the upper chamber. "I'm not holding my breath on an early election," he said. "We have to be ready, however, just in case. That's why we need your continued financial support and your help with the ground game. We've got to become born-again Canadians, I think, and explain to our kids, our families and our neighbours why the Conservatives are the party they can count on to work for them and for their values." Born-again Canadians? Um, okay. Makes sense, I guess. To paraphrase Jesus, only those who are born again shall be able to see the glory of government infrastructure projects and festival funding in their ridings

I need a job, I like to travel, I am not that bright. Please, Mr. Harper, may I be a Senator too?

148...Mikey I: Travelling Man

Macleans magazine has a little poll on the wanderlust of our next Prime Minister.

Voila: http://www2.macleans.ca/macleans-poll/

WFDS