Scoring: Having It Both Ways

They've far more in common with one another than one might suppose. Both inclined to the intellectual, both with hearty egos. Each sees himself as a leader of men. They each are autocratic in nature. Both are highly partisan, quick to denounce one another. And each likes to keep his caucus on a short leash. One has experience as a politician, the other is on the short end of the learning stick.

But it's the Conservative, Stephen Harper, who is currently Canada's prime minister. And it is the erstwhile university lecturer, cum human-rights expert, cum journalist, recently ascended by fiat to the leadership of the Liberal Party, and as such leader of the Official Opposition, who seeks the prime ministership of this country. Assuming, in the folly of his hubris, that it will fall easily to him.

As easily, perhaps, as the bypassing of the democratic process by which he was acclaimed to his party's leadership. And just as the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has been accused of flouting principles, so has Mr. Ignatieff been recognized as doing the same, for expediency's sake. Much as Prime Minister Harper has been seen to succumb to political necessity, so too has Michael Ignatieff.

Mr. Harper, however, is a known entity, at this point, and has proven himself a reasonable, dependable, rational and intelligent administrator thus far. There is room for improvement, there always is. But he has amply demonstrated his capabilities. Mr. Ignatieff not so much; an unknown quantity, but one whose posturing does not overwhelm in the eye of the observer.

He sounds, in fact, like a pompous ass all too often, with his popinjay rhetoric, warning the prime minister that he, Mr. Ignatieff, the fearsome competitor for the primary seat of office in the House of Commons, is on the alert, watching, waiting for Mr. Harper to make another wrong move. Whereupon, Mr. Ignatieff will pounce, pouff! and Mr. Harper will be no more.

Spare us the absurd histrionics, please do. The Liberal Party could certainly not afford, at this juncture, in its tawdry, tired history, to oppose the new Conservative budget. Support it they must. And why not, after all? Its contents very much reflect that which a Liberal government would bring forward. But Mr. Ignatieff does not wish to be seen as being too accommodating.

Not for him the scorn and derision the Conservatives and Mr. Harper, so diligently and impolitely rained down on the bowed head of his predecessor. So he growls and he postures, and he appears downright juvenile, this purported man of letters with a propensity to, on occasion, say the wrong thing. Just like Mr. Harper, come to think of it.

Faced with the reality that six members of his caucus, representing Newfoundland and Labrador would insist on voting with their conscience - which is to say, alongside the delusions of their provincial premier, the raving Danny Williams - he resisted the temptation to insist on solidarity, to threaten, and 'granted them' a 'one-time vote of protest'. How utterly magnanimous.

Loftily, so nobly claiming that it would "send a clear signal to Newfoundland and Labrador and to the whole of Canada that this is no way to run a federation." What a hollow, feeble, transparent attempt at differentiating himself from the prime minister, that intractable, federation-bashing steward of the nation's economy.

Prime Minister Harper administers the country's affairs and steers the country back toward economic balance in the face of a storm devastating our trading partners, while the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada takes cheap shots and preens himself.