Tuesday, August 29, 2006
There's Something About Iggy
While my contempt for the Liberal Party remains pretty much intact, there's no denying that its leadership race has attracted the kind of raw intellectual horesepower that the other parties can only dream of (I think Stephen Harper and Tony Clement are both highly intelligent, but any race in which Belinda Stronach makes up one third of the candidates is going to be in direr straights than one in which Joe Volpe makes up one tenth of them). Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, and Stéphane Dion all have successful academic careers behind them, and most of the other candidates - in particular Martha Hall Findlay, Carolyn Bennett, and Ken Dryden - are cerebral enough not to embarass (Gerard Kennedy, while certainly no dunce, is the most inexplicably overrated candidate in any party's leadership race in a long time - maybe since Stronach). Still, there's no doubt that the candidate who's attracting the most attention, the one being compared to the Liberal Party's last Philosopher King, is Ignatieff.
I said earlier that I was "lukewarm" on Iggy. In hindsight, that's not the most apt term, or even the most apt thermal metaphor - a better one would be "hot and cold". There's much to like about the man: his mind is obviously first-rate, and he's a powerful communicator (albeit more in the written word than the spoken). His history (see here for what might, somewhat inaccurately owing to sheer length, be termed a "summary") indicates a defiant unwillingness to pigeonholed - witness the self-designated socialist criticizing striking coalminers in the U.K., or the pink-ish human rights expert supporting the invasion of Iraq - which, the issues which he's used notwithstanding, is an admirable trait that's missing from most Canadian politicians who are not actually in government. He is possessed of a humility that suits a leader (and, uh, helps torpedo comparisons to the Liberal Party's last Philosopher King), admitting that he might well be wrong about Iraq without actually backpedalling. For whatever it's worth, nearly everybody he's ever dealt with in a professional capacity comes away thinking that the guy would make a great PM. Though slightly to my right on a number of issues, he seems like a guy who should at least be a sentimental favourite or mine, à la Joe Lieberman.
But. There is a gulf - a maddeningly wide gulf, as it happens - between the level at which this guy should be performing and the level at which he is. His policy proposals are dull, and never ground-breaking (I expose myself to charges of hypocrisy, here, as a Trudeau admirer - Trudeau himself was notoriously uninnovative and non-specific during both his leadership campaign and the 1968 federal election campaign). His commentary on breaking issues, most notoriously his comments on the Israel-Lebanon affair, tend to be delayed and bring little new to the table (I'm not even talking about his "not losing sleep" comment - I'm far more willing to forgive an ill-considered off-the-cuff remark than than I am the far more prevalent safe platitude). In fact, even his past writings are infuriatingly academic, theorizing copiously about causes and ramifications of the problems facing the Earth without being very useful in terms of solutions (I base this last statement on a smaller sample size than I perhaps should be).
To top it all off, the free four page advertisement that Maclean's gave him this week (as far as I can tell, it's not posted on their website) reads a lot like, well, Paul Martin with its enthusiasm to satisfy everybody. Apparently "The country does not to be administered, it wants to be led" and "it doesn't want to be divided, it wants to be united." Really, Michael? Because I totally thought that Canadians wanted to be divided. Could you get on that?
Environmental policy? "The federal government's environmental plan must work with the provinces to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, take proactive steps to preserve and enhance the quality of air and water, and creat real incentives for good environmental behaviour and innovation." At long last, a leadership candidate coming out in favour of proactivity! "It's time to get touch, before it is too late." And admirable, if largely meaningless, sentiment, but it also follows directly on an assertion that "good environmental policy needs to be implemented in step with the normal rate of new investment", which sounds kind of Stephen Harper.
Aboriginal affairs? "A future Liberal government must return to the original Kelowna agreement and meet it in full. But it must go beyond Kelowna. The federal government must demonstrate leadership in working with Aboriginal communities to close the opportunity gaps that remain." So, you know, just like Paul Martin, only better.
Education? "The federal government should work with the provinces to eliminate all remaining barriers - of income and family circumstance - to post-secondary education." Finally, somebody willing to stand up to the powerful pro-barriers lobby.
It goes on. He favours reaching the 0.7% of GDP level of foreign aid, but declines to set a time table, managing to put him in exactly the same league as both Paul Martin *and* Stephen Harper. He apparently supports a strong federal government, but one that doesn't trample on the jurisdictions of the provinces (as opposed, one presumes, to his opponents, who favour a weak federal government or one that does trample on the jurisdiction of the provinces). For a feature that's advertised on the cover of the magazine as "The most intriguing new face in Canadian policits [revealing] how he'd change the country," it goes well beyond disappointing in failing not only to tell us anything new, but in failing to tell us anything at all.
I'm supporting Stéphane Dion, as this entire blog is aware, but I'm not blind to his faults. For a guy who had a cup of coffee as Foreign Affairs critic, he's surprisingly timid on foreign affairs (witness his non-position on the Afghanistan mission). On democratic renewal, he's awful. And then there's that thorny matter of Meech Lake, where he and I will never agree. But at least Dion's an extremely smart guy who's campaigning like an extremely smart guy instead of like, well, you know, that last highly touted and virtually coronated Liberal leader.
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While my contempt for the Liberal Party remains pretty much intact, there's no denying that its leadership race has attracted the kind of raw intellectual horesepower that the other parties can only dream of (I think Stephen Harper and Tony Clement are both highly intelligent, but any race in which Belinda Stronach makes up one third of the candidates is going to be in direr straights than one in which Joe Volpe makes up one tenth of them). Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, and Stéphane Dion all have successful academic careers behind them, and most of the other candidates - in particular Martha Hall Findlay, Carolyn Bennett, and Ken Dryden - are cerebral enough not to embarass (Gerard Kennedy, while certainly no dunce, is the most inexplicably overrated candidate in any party's leadership race in a long time - maybe since Stronach). Still, there's no doubt that the candidate who's attracting the most attention, the one being compared to the Liberal Party's last Philosopher King, is Ignatieff.
I said earlier that I was "lukewarm" on Iggy. In hindsight, that's not the most apt term, or even the most apt thermal metaphor - a better one would be "hot and cold". There's much to like about the man: his mind is obviously first-rate, and he's a powerful communicator (albeit more in the written word than the spoken). His history (see here for what might, somewhat inaccurately owing to sheer length, be termed a "summary") indicates a defiant unwillingness to pigeonholed - witness the self-designated socialist criticizing striking coalminers in the U.K., or the pink-ish human rights expert supporting the invasion of Iraq - which, the issues which he's used notwithstanding, is an admirable trait that's missing from most Canadian politicians who are not actually in government. He is possessed of a humility that suits a leader (and, uh, helps torpedo comparisons to the Liberal Party's last Philosopher King), admitting that he might well be wrong about Iraq without actually backpedalling. For whatever it's worth, nearly everybody he's ever dealt with in a professional capacity comes away thinking that the guy would make a great PM. Though slightly to my right on a number of issues, he seems like a guy who should at least be a sentimental favourite or mine, à la Joe Lieberman.
But. There is a gulf - a maddeningly wide gulf, as it happens - between the level at which this guy should be performing and the level at which he is. His policy proposals are dull, and never ground-breaking (I expose myself to charges of hypocrisy, here, as a Trudeau admirer - Trudeau himself was notoriously uninnovative and non-specific during both his leadership campaign and the 1968 federal election campaign). His commentary on breaking issues, most notoriously his comments on the Israel-Lebanon affair, tend to be delayed and bring little new to the table (I'm not even talking about his "not losing sleep" comment - I'm far more willing to forgive an ill-considered off-the-cuff remark than than I am the far more prevalent safe platitude). In fact, even his past writings are infuriatingly academic, theorizing copiously about causes and ramifications of the problems facing the Earth without being very useful in terms of solutions (I base this last statement on a smaller sample size than I perhaps should be).
To top it all off, the free four page advertisement that Maclean's gave him this week (as far as I can tell, it's not posted on their website) reads a lot like, well, Paul Martin with its enthusiasm to satisfy everybody. Apparently "The country does not to be administered, it wants to be led" and "it doesn't want to be divided, it wants to be united." Really, Michael? Because I totally thought that Canadians wanted to be divided. Could you get on that?
Environmental policy? "The federal government's environmental plan must work with the provinces to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, take proactive steps to preserve and enhance the quality of air and water, and creat real incentives for good environmental behaviour and innovation." At long last, a leadership candidate coming out in favour of proactivity! "It's time to get touch, before it is too late." And admirable, if largely meaningless, sentiment, but it also follows directly on an assertion that "good environmental policy needs to be implemented in step with the normal rate of new investment", which sounds kind of Stephen Harper.
Aboriginal affairs? "A future Liberal government must return to the original Kelowna agreement and meet it in full. But it must go beyond Kelowna. The federal government must demonstrate leadership in working with Aboriginal communities to close the opportunity gaps that remain." So, you know, just like Paul Martin, only better.
Education? "The federal government should work with the provinces to eliminate all remaining barriers - of income and family circumstance - to post-secondary education." Finally, somebody willing to stand up to the powerful pro-barriers lobby.
It goes on. He favours reaching the 0.7% of GDP level of foreign aid, but declines to set a time table, managing to put him in exactly the same league as both Paul Martin *and* Stephen Harper. He apparently supports a strong federal government, but one that doesn't trample on the jurisdictions of the provinces (as opposed, one presumes, to his opponents, who favour a weak federal government or one that does trample on the jurisdiction of the provinces). For a feature that's advertised on the cover of the magazine as "The most intriguing new face in Canadian policits [revealing] how he'd change the country," it goes well beyond disappointing in failing not only to tell us anything new, but in failing to tell us anything at all.
I'm supporting Stéphane Dion, as this entire blog is aware, but I'm not blind to his faults. For a guy who had a cup of coffee as Foreign Affairs critic, he's surprisingly timid on foreign affairs (witness his non-position on the Afghanistan mission). On democratic renewal, he's awful. And then there's that thorny matter of Meech Lake, where he and I will never agree. But at least Dion's an extremely smart guy who's campaigning like an extremely smart guy instead of like, well, you know, that last highly touted and virtually coronated Liberal leader.
