STEPHEN HARPER AT THE G8: HOW TO MAKE A SOW'S EAR OUT OF A SILK PURSE

PRIME MINISTER STPEHEN HARPER AT G8 MEETING IN L'AQUILA

Yesterday at the end of the G8 Conference in L’Aquila, Italy, the Prime Minister once again shot himself in the foot. And once again, his self-inflicted wounds were the result of his rash, nasty, and obsessive propensity to wreak havoc on his opponents, regardless of the occasion, appropriateness, or whether or not what he says is true.

With his wrap-up press conference Harper had his golden opportunity to act as a statesman. All he had to do was put together two or three coherent sentences of no-brainer reflections on the light-weight gabfest of the previous couple of days and he would have been home free. With CanWest and CTV doing the rest of his heavy lifting to drive the message home back in Canada, Harper would have looked positively Prime Ministerial – indeed, no small achievement for such a klutz. It should have been a romp in the park.

Instead, Canada’s Icarus* (or Inspector Clouseau** – take your pick) screwed it up for himself again.
* Read: STEPHEN HARPER: DONE IN BY HUBRIS AND IDEOLOGY
* * Read: PRIME MINISTER HARPER: CANADA'S INSPECTOR CLOSEAU

First of all, in his response to a question at the press conference Harper exhibited his usual class and elegance, vowing not to take “dumb” advice from Parliament budget officer Kevin Page. The courageous Page, increasingly becoming one of Harper’s chief pains in the ass, had earlier in the week stated the obvious – that the Harper government had misread the effect of the Canadian recession on both the economy and government coffers. As a result, said Page, there would be more job losses than previously thought. Furthermore, Page noted the government was now running a “structural deficit” which would preclude a return to surpluses when the economy got better. All of this, he said, pointed to “significant discretionary actions” for the government so that it could rid itself of the red ink.

Harper took Page’s words to mean that the government would have to impose higher taxes and slash programs, all of which said Clouseau, er, Harper, was a “dumb suggestion.” Sounding much like President George H. W. Bush (father of Harper’s pal, young George) when the elder Bush told a crowd on the campaign trail, “Read my lips. No new taxes” (words which later caused him much grief), Harper said, "It will not be the position of our government. We will not be raising the GST or any other tax during or after the recession.”

But it wasn’t enough for Clouseau to merely trash Page. There was little challenge in that, Page being in the PM's mind merely a miserable, lowlife bureaucrat. No, Harper now had to go after a bigger fish like Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff. Without the reporter even hinting of a question about Ignatieff or even mentioning his name, the PM gratuitously accused the Opposition Leader of saying publicly that the G8 should be replaced by a group of nations that do not include Canada.

As he ad-libbed his way through his attack it was clear Harper wanted to keep on message with his party’s earlier attack ads that belittled Iggy’s Canadian credentials. Those ads, you will recall, questioned Ignatieff’s commitment to Canada because he had studied and lectured at some of the best universities abroad, authored well-written books from a world perspective, and reported from war zones far from home. According to Harper and his cronies, Iggy’s background is no match for one whose intellectual pursuits and job experience consists of being of brainwashed in the neocon political science classes of Tom Flanagan at the University of Calgary, or reciting the collected works of Ronald Reagan as chief honcho of the National Citizen's Coalition - surely the lunatic fringe of Conservatism in Canada. Harper said of Ignatieff’s so-called remarks,

"I don't think you go out and throw out ideas like this that are so obviously contrary to a country's interest and nobody else is advocating them. I think it's an irresponsible suggestion, and Mr. Ignatieff is supposed to be a Canadian.”

But alas, Iggy had not said those words and Harper was forced to issue this ignominious apology immediately after the conclusion of the press conference:

"During my press conference I attacked Mr. Ignatieff for some things he had allegedly said about Canada in the G8. I learned shortly after the press conference this was not a quotation of Mr. Ignatieff. I regret the error and I apologize to Mr. Ignatieff for this error."

For a complete transcript of the exchange giving rise to Harper’s statement about Ignatieff and the abject apology, read this very carefully.

Of course, there is always somebody around to take the fall for the PM on the many occasions he puts his foot in it. This time it was his media mouth piece Dimitri Soudas – who seems to be getting a lot of press these days - what with having to explain the unexplainable, like the case of the missing communion wafer.

Soudas, who because of his yeoman service in taking bullets for his boss should be in line for a permanent job with the Fraser Institute before the summer is out, admitted passing false information about Ignatieff to Harper without substantiation.

In fact, it was former Canadian diplomat Gordon Smith, director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, who made the statement attributed by Harper to Ignatieff. Smith laments Canada’s not taking a leadership role in the G8 and believes the country is losing its importance internationally.

During the same press conference, Harper also displayed his continuing irritation over the wafer fiasco during Holy Communion ceremonies at the funeral of former Governor General Romeo Leblanc. Skipping over the fact that it was highly unusual - to say the least - that as a non-Catholic he should take Holy Communion in a Catholic ceremony, he said,

“First of all, as a Christian, I have never refused communion when offered to me. That's actually pretty important to me. Somebody running an unsubstantiated story that I would stick communion bread in my pocket is really absurd and I think it's a real, frankly, a low point. This is a low moment in journalism, whoever is responsible for this. It's just a terrible story and a ridiculous story and not based on anything, as near as I can tell."

Well, given his negative ads and his record as a campaigner/politician, Harper clearly knows something of ‘low' points. I mean, he’s an expert at low points, having spent a lot of time wallowing amongst low points of his creation himself.

As far as the wafer story not being based on anything, perhaps he should look at the video and see it for himself. Once again it can be found here.

See Also:
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090710/G8_food_090710/20090710?hub=TorontoNewHome
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Harper+apologizes+criticizing+Ignatieff/1778259/story.html

STEPHEN HARPER: DONE IN BY HUBRIS AND IDEOLOGY

Harper (at bottom) having flown too close to the Sun

Hubris: Excessive pride displayed by a character, at times taking the form of a boastful challenge to the gods or other higher powers--often resulting in harsh punishment.

Practical hubris is the hubris of Icarus, son of Daedalus. In Greek myth, Daedalus, imprisoned on an island, devises a novel means of escape -- he crafts wings which enable him (and his son) to fly. Before they make their departure, Daedalus warns Icarus of the dangers of flying too high or too low. However, once they are underway, Icarus gets carried away with the joy of flying and ascends to a great height up near the sun. The heat from sun melts the wax that holds the wings together, and Icarus plunges to his death. See: http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:icK6CAg14C8J:www.blog.speculist.com/archives/000606.html+icarus+hubris&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After all, he was the one with the leadership qualities. The Kennedy haircut, the business-like approach to government, the glibness hidden behind a voice with a tone of reason, the self confidence – ah yes, the self-confidence - supreme, ever present, impatient, patronizing.

And the chief opponent, struggling with a distinctive French accent and a mangled English syntax, the boring professor with a back pack, to whom he thought he had put the boots to with the TV attack ads well before the election.

And the socialist – old hat by now, and doctrinaire, leading a party in its final chapter on the way into the history books.

To say nothing of that pesky woman. Yes, a woman. A fanatical tree hugger no less, with the temerity to challenge the safe seat of Peter McKay. Surely, the good burghers of Central Nova or anyone else in the country would pay no attention to such an extremist.

Surely it would be a romp, he said to himself as he appraised the situation on September 7.

Finally he would be given the opportunity of governing as he wished. He would have a free hand in changing Canada at last. He would change its values, move it further within the orbit of the United States so that they would fight side-by-side for all of their shared neocon principles – private medicare, massive deregulation, glory on the battlefield, deep corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich to create those private dynasties that are so effective in creating wealth. Now was his time.

Such an easy romp he thought it was that he could even break a basic election promise of a specific date for the election. And why not? He could say that parliament was dysfunctional and the Canadian people would believe him. Because it was him who was saying it. Look at who his opponents were. And look at the polls. And his party had plenty of money - not the green shift but the green stuff. Now was the time.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the polls.

First of all, there was plenty of baggage. The Canadian people had never really warmed up to him. They saw him as a brooding and cold character. He was smart enough, they thought, but weirdly different, and even dangerous. He was too close to the United States for some. His drum beating for the war in Afghanistan to shed blood for a seat at the table did not go down so well for many. They remembered his support of the war in Iraq. They remembered his attacks on Medicare and some of his more extreme statements when he was the head honcho of the National Citizens Coalition.

Even many in his own party distrusted him. He was known to have been disloyal to colleagues. Even Preston Manning distrusted him. He could also be curt and surly. He was a control freak.

He had lapses of integrity. He was not above poaching speeches made by others – even important speeches exhorting the country to have its young bleed in a foreign war.

His slashing partisanship was in a class of its own. He accused his Liberal opponents who dared question some of his policies of supporting the Taliban and not being friends of Israel. When a bereaved father who lost a son in Afghanistan subsequently criticized his government for its policy there, one of his minions said that it was because the father was a Liberal. In the Commons, when a Sikh MP criticized government policy, he said it was because the MP was attempting to protect a relative from testifying at the Air India Inquiry.

And he had a mean streak. He relished seeing his opponents humiliated. He enjoyed holding over their heads the constant threat of an election that he knew they weren’t ready to fight. He approved the running of attack ads that centered on the Opposition leader's French accent in communicating in English as being indicative of a lack of leadership.

He carried on with unsettling behavior during the campaign. When reminded during one of the debates that a medical journal published a letter from a Doctor attacking the government's food inspection system, he said it was because the Doctor was a Liberal. His partisanship was so infectious that an overzealous campaigner created a cartoon puffin doing its private business on the shoulder of the Leader of the Opposition in a TV ad. He took a cheap shot at struggling Canadian artists who, he said, are not appreciated by ordinary Canadians because of their rich taxpayer subsidized galas.

And he hated to admit mistakes. During the English language debate, despite the repeated badgering of Gilles Duceppe, he side-stepped, evaded, bamboozled, and muttered his way into an ignominious corner until he had to cry uncle with an abject admission that the Iraq invasion was a mistake.

Then along came the economic meltdown.with stock markets crashing, foreign banks going broke and real estate values plummeting. There was fear in the hearts of ordinary Canadians. They were worried about their jobs, their savings, their retirement, their children’s future, and they were looking for answers and reassurance.

Far be it for the neocon to come to their rescue. Neocons live and die with the market. They believe in hard-nosed laissez-faire, market forces and rugged individualism. And they will hear no belly-aching, thank you very much. That is the neocon’s solution to the problems the little people are facing today. And that is what he offered.

He was unprepared for the tough times. He had no platform. He had no solution beyond the rigidly conservative provisions of his earlier announcements of a little here and a little there. And he certainly had no compassion. Not even an appearance of compassion. Compassion is the last thing a neocon would even think about.

And so, the chickens have come home to roost. All of that hubris, all of that narrow ideology has done him in - his government, his leadership and his political career.