Silly Little Country

Our celebrity candidates

Just watched another interview with our astronaut Marc Garneau running for the Liberals in Quebec; he actually seems like rather a good fellow.

Then, oddly, they switch to a panel led by Jane Taber, supposedly of other celebrity candidates. And who are they - one is Michael Ignatieff, who fits the bill, and another is Peter Kent, a newscaster. But this third is Marilyn Churley , the NDP candidate in my riding! A celebrity? Well, shewas a cabinet minister in Ontario, if I recall correctly, but this is no Marc Garneau - she is an NDP hack.

In any case she is living up to my expectations (or perhaps down to them). Ignatieff brushes away a stupid question from her - he is vulnerable because he has written thoughtfully in the past on military interventions and the limits of interrogation techniques, and of course Churley has no need of thought on any of those topics, and in fact regards any serious consideration of these issues a shocking thing.

Even better, Kent brushes away a stupid privatization rant from her with a very nice observation that our medical care system would not be viable without all the private organizations delivering medical care to us (as I have pointed out, I am pretty sure all my current suppliers run private enterprises, and bill the government for my basic services, and me for extras). I'll bet Churley gets her medical care from a doctor running some private enterprise. Though I wonder if she knows.

Ignatieff has an interesting road ahead of him; there is no question his support for the war in Iraq, and his complicated positions on several issues, will not fit easily with the moronic style of some of our campaigns. But even this show has made me hopeful; Kent's performance was excellent in tossing back the privatization mantra from Churley, and Ignatieff was delightfully brusque with her stupidities. Whether that brusqueness can work for good we shall see. Many of the press are anointing Ignatieff with the Liberal leadership succession, which seems a little odd at this stage of the game, and I think we should wait another several decades before getting ourselves another Trudeau, and the disasters that could come from that (and it is Trudeau that same press yearn to have back).

posted by Alan Adamson @ 12:29 PM