Buckle Up

So Iggy's blustering (again? still?) and we may be headed for another national election. How annoying. More rhetoric, more accusations, more short memories, more lies, more of the same old crap.

According to news reports this morning, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff floated the election idea (presumably to test the waters) at a convention in Sudbury. One report said Ignatieff has accused the Conservative government of failing on all four benchmarks set out by the Liberals last June for continued support.

First of all, I don't care about Liberal benchmarks. I didn't ask them to set any, I don't necessarily agree with them and the Liberals have an equally dismal record on all of them - jobs, health care, restoration of public finances, et cetera, et cetera. What's more, the Liberals had a much better shot at dealing with all of the above when they were governing, in the majority, without a global economic meltdown to deal with.

In short, shut the fuck up Iggy. Go back to the U.S. and your safe little academic world. Stick with theory and leave the practical governing to those with the experience.

Former Ontario Premier (and current Liberal leader wannabe) Bob Rae was on Canada AM this morning firing rhetoric in all directions. It was actually kind of funny to see this guy labelling the Conservative government "incompetent."

Actually, he's got a fair bit of credibility here. The man knows what an incompetent government looks like, as he was sitting at the top of Ontario's most incompetent governments in the '80s. That province is still recovering from Rae's days as leader of the Ontario NDP.

As for Jack Layton and the NDP, they really don't even deserve a mention. Just irrelevant.

I'll say one thing for Iggy though. He was smart enough to wait until the "global economic crisis" apparently bottomed out before announcing his intention to take over.

It's SO much easier to sit back and criticize in the midst of the storm. You certainly don't want to take the helm in uncertain seas. Better just to sit back and set stupid benchmarks for the captain, ("um, captain, while you're dealing with this hurricane, we would appreciate it if you could ensure no one gets seasick, or wet") while at the same time doing your best to panic the passengers by threatening a mutiny with the other deckhands.

And now, with the storm slowly clearing and the seas calming, it's a good time to want to take control. Problem is, we've seen the Liberals at the helm in calm weather and the ship just kept going in circles, leaking fuel while the captain and his friends sat at the captain's table dining liberally on pork.

So buckle up folks. Iggy wants the wheel. Layton and Duceppe want to dine at the captain's table and we, once again, are just along for the ride.