Well let me be wrong politically...

... but it doesn't make me ultimately wrong, so frustrated with some of this reaction I am.

[for the Dr. Seuss language, and the infantile ranting - many apologies. It is Friday night before a trip to Stratford for St. George's to 12th Night at the RSC and I am mercifully drunk]

Below Cherniak, consummate Liberal, says (in reference to Martin): "People really feel sorry for the guy getting attacked all the time."

OK, fair. Except - doesn't Martin DESERVE to be attacked personally?

Putting partisan politics aside - well, sorry, but the argument IS (it has to be) against Martin himself... saw no evil, heard no evil, did no evil, eh... just should have been more vigilent (ask: what would/should you have done - and you'll get: silence)

What should we do now? Ask him a question about it? Good luck. Oh yeah, let's not have an election until the.... oops. Why SHOULD THAT NOT BE the whole crux of the debate, and once the election is called, woe be those who have to go door-to-door on behalf of the Libs and say "just give us more time... last election we were kidding when we went."

Forgive me if this attitude is what makes me (I am drunk, remember) always hate arrogant Liberals and their "bullish" politics. But if this strategy ends up working, it is only because of the lowest ability to engage people on fundamental issues. The lowest of absolute common denominators. And makes a guy who wants to be a political strategist abhor the very idea. Because what are you really doing or working for?

And even if it works politically, impossibly, for even the sake of ONE HOUR, it isn't worthy of anyone who looks at the issue seriously for even a second. Cherniak might disagree, and quote emails to the National - but if the allegations in front of Gomery are even remotely true, shouldn't ANY Liberal argue that after 12 years in power, they must suffer some penalty for this, whether or not Mr. Dithers himself was technically responsible or not? The party needs to be held to account, or else there is nothing left. Is there ANY circumstance that some of these people would accept that this party should be rejected?

As a left-wing politcally hyperactive person who desperately wants to see government active in people's lives, and believes it can do good, this all really makes me sick, frankly. Especially for ANY Liberals who tonight (or in coming weeks) still try and argue that they are the best to clean this up. IT WON'T WASH. How can it? And it shouldn't. PLEASE: If you are a Liberal that had nothing to do with this, even YOU should feel that some of these people should be booted as far from Ottawa as possible, as soon as possible.

Support Martin if you want, die-hards. But ask yourself what you, yourself, would have done if you were in his position at that time, and then heard what happened while you were in charge of the books. How fucking phoney would you have felt doing that taped address? Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe it.

I don't much like Harper. At all. But watching him these past few weeks, I have to say I'd much rather him as my PM than Martin. At least he doesn't look like he wanted to be Prime Minister since he'd been born. Or ever begged to get there. In fact, he looks, frankly, something like my father would in the midst of what he is hearing these days. Fed the fuck up. And I keep thinking that he looks ready. I emphasize: I don't agree with his politics. But he looks straightforward enough - that is what we need now and what I would tell people to vote for.

He is certainly not looking angry or making personal attacks, and shouldn't be accused as such. He is attacking exactly what any opposition leader would and should when faced with the allegations coming out of Gomery. People will talk about how they underestimated him, just as they constantly underestimated JC. Tonight, tomorrow and the next day.

And you know what? (please note: still drunk - listening to Phish on a loop and about to catch an hour of sleep or so before what promises to be an epic day with Cooper in Stratford at the RSC and the Bureau for Shakes' supposed b-day). At this point, if there is an election in the Spring, and die-hard Liberals keep up this rhetoric about people who shouldn't be "attacking Martin", I am going to mail in a vote across the Atlantic for the leader that least represents my ultimate political philosophy. It will likely be the only time, in my lifetime, that I vote Conservative. But I will if this continues to be the argument out of the Libs and NDPers.

And as I pass out, so cynically, I do so in the thought that at least I had Dean. Anyone who laughs at that should have been in New Hampshire to see him speak. I saw him twice - in Keene and Nashua. With Rocco from Jersey and Helena from California. Just the idea that a guy like that had the *possibility* of being President was such a humongous victory.

Inspirational politics at its finest. Who will be next?