Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Liberals to Canadians: “Settle down! You’ll get your say on Harper when we’re damn well ready to give it to you”

In explaining the Emersonian ethics behind his finking to the Liberals, Bob Rae has famously said that he has changed, while the NDP has not.

For most who have seen the party embrace balanced budgets and abandon old polemics, this explanation seems far too convenient.

Then along comes New-MP-Bob to tell us he doesn’t care if Liberal abstentions are helping Harper’s agenda, he doesn’t want Canadians anywhere near a polling booth until the Liberal Party is assured of victory.

Rae on the Newman show today:

“[Mr Dion has to] weigh these things carefully and choose the moment where you think you've the best chance of forming the alternative government because that's really what it's all about. We don't -- there aren't too many opportunities that come around to do this, and this is a very important moment for Canada as to what kind of a government we are going to have and so the leader has to exercise his discretion in saying, ‘I don't think this is the right moment so we are going to have to take whatever measures have to be done; swallow a little bit of this or that and get on with it.' The big issue is not what -- what goes on in the House of Commons is important. It's -- I’m not saying it's not important. But how is the election going to go?”

In short, Rae’s saying Canadians let us down last time, so we’re prepared to let them swallow the Harper agenda for a while, ‘till we figure out how to get back into 24 Sussex. And that’s the way it’s gunna be.

How about that? It turns out Rae really has changed. He’s become way more superior, self-serving and manipulative. Just what Canadians are crying out for.

6 comments:

Mark said...

If Liberal voting patterns are to be blamed for prolonging Harper's agenda, whose voting patterns brought us Harper's agenda in the first place?

Thanks for killing child care Jack.

Blogging Horse said...

Um, that would be Canadians' votes. Over 4 million of them if memory serves.

There's that Liberal Party distain towards the choices voters make again. Kinda unseemly in a democracy, don't you think?

And now that you mention it, thanks for promising 150,000 child care spaces in 1993 and then doing squat about it for 13 years, Liberal Party of Canada.

susansmith said...

Mark trots out the tired liberal myth that the NDP brought the house down, although he knows darn well that the numbers never added up.
I'm so tired of libs lying about that - they will do anything to beat up on the NDP. Your focus should be on the cons who took another seat away from the libs. And after Dion and the libs ensured that the environment got trashed, kept us in war in Afghanistan (again since 2003 times 4), economic politices that Dion said he supported because they are lib lite, and crime.
Why are libs propping up the Harper cons?

Blogging Horse said...

That's right, Jan. A lot of Liberals, including some of the smarter Libloggers, saw through Dion's proposterous "non-confidence in the NDP" motion.

One theory is that Liberals and their candidate in Central Nova attack the NDP because they don't what to explain their role in the Stephen Harper still being Prime Minister.

Stephen said...

Bob Rae has famously said that he has changed, while the NDP has not.

Actually, this is true.

When Bob Rae was running for the leadership of the Liberal party, he opposed extending the war in Afghanistan, saying he 'profoundly disagreed' with Michael Ignatieff on the issue.

Since then, Bob Rae has changed. He now supports extending and escalating the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the NDP has been consistent in opposing the war, and has kept pushing instead for an alternative path to peace.

Bob Rae has changed.

The NDP has not.

Malcolm+ said...

Mark, like all Liberals, is a liar.

Even if the NDP had supported the Martin government, it would have fallen. The votes weren't there.

And there never was a Liberal child care plan.

The Liberals promised a child care plan in the 1993 election.

They lied.

They promised a child care plan in the 1997 election.

They lied.

They promised a child care plan i the 2000 election.

They lied.

They promised a child care plan in the 2004 election.

They lied again.

In fact, they introduced the most right wing budget in Canadian history - with exactly two-thirds of four-fifths of bugger all for child care.

It was a budget so right wing that the ever scary Stephen Harper thought it was just fine.

And when Stephen Harper decided not to support the hard right Liberal budget after all, then and only then did we get the NDP budget of 2005 - forced on the Liberals against their will - which included dollars for child care.

But still, there was no plan.

There was a has-been goalie skating around the country handing out cheques to provincial governments. No program criteria. Just free cash.

If you believe that was a "plan," then you are an "idiot."

But I don't think you're an idiot, Mark.

You're a Liberal. QED, you are lying.