He's Not A Quitter

All very well, but there are signal times when reasonable people understand there is a time to stand down, to walk away, to allow others to resume where you have unsuccessfully left off. A man of grace, honour, integrity and honesty, is the way people who believed in Stephane Dion described him. He obviously, quite obviously, believes himself to be imbued with all of those descriptives.

Add to them highly intelligent, principled, adept at bringing people around to his way of thinking.

How intelligent can someone truly be if he or she is functionally incapable of carefully listening to others, of weighing alternate opinions, of seeking reliable advice, of understanding that there are times when one's agenda is too unilateral to suit the times and the circumstances beyond one's control. Compromise is often necessary to produce a balanced result.

Those incapable of learning from others become a self-fulfilling failure.

But not Stephane Dion, that good and honest man, that upright and brilliant politician, surely one of a kind. Nothing, it would appear, was his fault. It was his personal tragedy that the Conservatives set out to portray him as inadequate to the job he was elected to do; lead the Liberal party.

Lead he might, but ascend to the prime ministership of the country? Absolutely not, said the Conservatives; he wasn't leadership material. He claimed otherwise, as did his fervid supporters. They were, after all, stuck with him, and to their credit many in his party did believe in his capabilities.

His attestation of his devotion to the environment left many in doubt, given the opportunities he squandered while his party was in power and he was in control of that portfolio. But he became very fond of his Green Shift initiative, fondling its brilliance in his mind, so certain he was on the right track.

He might have been, and perhaps not, but his salesmanship was sorely lacking. He was incapable of convincing the electorate, despite their general wish to be obliging to the environmental needs of our day. That too was not his fault. Mostly he blames the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for convincing people that his way lay fiscal ruination.

But then, isn't it up to each to convince the other? If the parties agreed with one another, what use of oppositional parties with varying agendas?

He offered Canadians a way out of a dilemma facing us all, and Canadians shunned his offer. Another failure not entirely his own, since no one could accuse him of a lack of passion. It simply was not met as it should have been, through a general acceptance and a dedication to the vital task at hand.

People are too wedded to their comforts and the assurance of a healthy economy; not his fault, ours. We had the opportunity that Mr. Dion so high-mindedly offered us to become better than we are. We politely restrained our enthusiasm.

The "not a leader" campaign, and the "Green Shift failure" propaganda that torpedoed his election campaign represent nasty campaigning on the part of the Conservative Party. Mind, the Liberals' campaign advertisements casting aspersions on the character of Stephen Harper, and the evil hidden agenda of his party were not to be classed as propaganda, but truth as they saw it.

Stephane Dion resides in a comforting cocoon of smugness. His self-righteousness is his staff of support through life. Unable and unwilling to recognize when privilege morphs into obligation for the greater good, he has come to the decision that he must, on principle, stay on as leader of the opposition until such time as a leadership review can be held.

Blinkered, self-assuredly confident as he blinks into the spotlight, he becomes a hapless liability to his party and the country he so passionately feels he has earned the right to govern. An unappreciative, selfish electorate slammed his vision of a noble avenue to a better, more sustainable economy to benefit both ourselves and nature.

The aspirations of other, high-ranking members of the Liberal Party will simply have to be put on ice for the time being. Everyone, from the political pundits who know everything, the news media, and his own colleagues, bitter at the inadequacy of his communication, his techniques, his unfailing faith in himself, despite evidence that would encourage a more rational head to act differently, expected he would resign, painfully but with grace.

It was expected of him, but Stephane Dion is his own man, marching to his own vision, far and away ahead of mere mortals whose cerebral function simply cannot match his. That his historical loss at the polls for his party, representing a mere 26% of the popular vote was everyone else's fault, certainly not his. The man is most definitely not a 'quitter' we know that, because he assured us this is so.

And so, his party can sigh, and wait another seven months before it can begin to rescue itself. From its deserved oblivion. To re-invent itself and find its place on the political spectrum. To reassure Canadians anew that their party is worth investing in. They've got a long hard uphill clamber.