Liberals call putting power-lust ahead of principles a “strategy”

What if you found out that your MP voted for something they had said they were against? Would you be upset?

And what if instead of voting for this thing your MP was just choosing not to vote at all?

And what if instead of one thing, it was 15 things (and counting)?

And what if your MP had voted that way for no other reason than because they figured it would help them get reelected?

And what if instead of one MP, it was an entire party?

And what if the best explanation they had for their dishonesty is “we can feel it when the fruit is ripe. And at that time - it's not up to me to tell you when; it's part of the strategy that we keep close to our chest”?

Like most people, you would feel deceived. You would feel that party had put themselves first, not you, not the issues they campaigned on, and not the national interest, but their interest. Narrow partisanship run amuck.

The Liberal Party is doing all that and proudly boasting that it’s their “strategy.”

For Stephane Dion, ordering MPs to collect $155,000 a year to skip out on votes, or vote with Stephen Harper so he can extend the war in Afghanistan for at least another three years, gut the public purse, continue to ignore the environment, effectively pull Canada out of Kyoto, and reverse a Liberal initiative to give tax credits for education is a “strategy.”

But of course, their “strategy” is a trap:

Their only goal is to win an election, but they know they can’t. So they let Harper get what he wants to avoid triggering that election. But stripped of the thin veneer of principles, their power-lust alienates progressive voters to the NDP. Meaning even less appetite for an election. Repeat.

People who voted Liberal in 2006 don't need Dion and his "strategies" -- they need something to believe in again. That something is Jack Layton and the NDP.