Rock paper scissors

Steve suggests a plan for the Liberal leadership:

On one level, it's the height of elitism, decidedly undemocratic, downright unfair. However, the idea floated yesterday, one I've also considered, of simply having the Liberal caucus lock themselves in a room until they come to relative unanimity on the next leader does have merit. A vote, whomever wins, that person is the defacto leader.

The comments to his post are thumbs down, but I think this has merit. After the Liberal experience last time, when a bruising, expensive, year-long, nine-contender campaign finally produced a leader who apparently couldn't get along with his caucus, maybe there is a better way.
Or else lets just have Rae and Iggy play a few rounds of rock paper scissors, eh?

Gee, what a surprise

The New York Times is reporting that Bush has decided not to close Guantanamo.
Oh, who could ever have expected that?
My litmus test for whether Obama is really going to try to change things in the United States, or whether he is just going to go along to get along, is whether he orders Gitmo closed. He would have to deal with a shitstorm of faux outrage from the Pentagon and from the Bush enablers in Congress, but its a decision that must be made. Here's why:

Mr. Cheney and his chief of staff, David S. Addington, have made it clear in the internal discussions this year that keeping Guantánamo open under a new president would validate the administration’s decisions dealing with terrorists, the officials said.

Conservatives or Liberals?

Which party is this MP talking about?

He paints the party brass as ultra-aggressive, unaccountable apparatchiks who treat politics as a blood sport, more interested in scoring points off the opposition than in governing well. They wield tremendous influence, forming an impenetrable barrier around the leader and treating MPs like underlings. 'The elected officials shouldn't be working for the unelected people.'

Answer here.

Dion had his opportunity

Rabble's Duncan Cameron writes:

In his televised press conference Dion admitted that the party had lacked the resources to counter Conservative propaganda, and mount a campaign to put another face on his leadership.

Sorry, but Dion is not blameless here -- he had ample opportunity to respond to the the Conservative attack ads.
It doesn't cost a penny to give a good speech in the House of Commons.
And surely, when Dion was elected leader, the Liberals could have sent him across the country to appear on radio talk shows and talk to local media and tell Canadians who he was.
Cameron made another couple of observations I thought were interesting. About Dion's leadership he said:

Dion lost his leadership when he agreed to go along with the Conservatives on a meaningless agenda to remain in Afghanistan, when he should have been affirming his leadership by opposing the war. Instead of flushing out his enemies within caucus, and building links in his own province, he preferred to support the continental militarization of Canada.

And about the candidates for the next Liberal leader he says:

Big money and its friends have done well by the Liberal party. An executive vice-president of the TD Bank looks like the right choice to Liberals comfortable with this symbiotic relationship. But a McKenna candidacy does not appeal to the people that elected Dion Liberal leader: young people, idealists, citizens devoted to environmental causes, international development or national unity. Of course these are precisely the people coveted by the NDP and Green Party alike.

What the world thinks of Cariboo Barbie

Humourist Nury Vittachi (via) writes about What Palin means to Asians

A Western journalist called me the other day to ask what Asians thought of Sarah Palin.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I’ll ask them.”
I held my hand over phone, counted to 20 and then got back on the line. “They like him,” I said. “But they think he should make more episodes of Monty Python.”
There was a long pause. I heard the journalist’s brain cell click into place. “That’s not Sarah Palin,” she eventually said. “That’s Michael Palin.”
“Well, Asians would like her to tell her husband to make more episodes of Monty Python.”
“Actually, I don’t think Michael Palin is her husband.”
I took a sharp intake of breath. “They are not legally married? That’s something that Asians definitely do not approve of.”
“No, no, no, she’s married to someone else, not Michael Palin.”
“That makes it worse,” I said.
There are few things in life more pleasurable than tormenting American journalists. The only downside is that it is so easy. They are absolutely convinced that the rest of the world watches every detail of what happens in the United States as if it was some sort of wacky global sitcom designed to entertain the rest of the planet. Actually, that IS more or less the case. But I still like teasing them.

Ignoring deficits

So the news du jour seems to be that Harper might run a deficit.
And from what I am reading lately, running a deficit would be a good thing -- the economy needs government spending now, not cuts and cutbacks.
There is apparently a new anti-deficit focus among the American right-wing. For the last 8 years, they couldn't have cared less about Bush spending trillions on Iraq, and it was Cheney who said "deficits don't matter" But now of course they don't want Obama to be improving health care and infrastructure, so now deficits are baaaaad -- I expect we'll see lots of punditry over the next few months worrying so much about the deficit and how irresponsible it would be for Obama to spend anything. dday at Hullabaloo calls it creeping neo-Hooverism, and no doubt this attitude will bleed over into Canada, too. I hope Harper just ignores it -- he's pretty good at ignoring things!

King Ralph

Well this is interesting -- Goodale wants to be interim leader instead of John McCallum. I guess we'll know tomorrow, but I hope Goodale makes it -- the Liberals need someone who will generate press coverage over the next seven months by hammering Harper in the House over what I expect will be the inadequate, poorly planned, and ideological Conservative responses to the coming Canadian economic crises. Go, Ralph!

Great line of the day

From Atrios, talking about the Powell endorsement:

I think what little credibility Colin Powell had is in a little vial of white powder somewhere, and have no desire to help rehabilitate his image. Still such things are not aimed at me, but at that segment of the population for whom the recommendation of their first black friend might encourage them to get a second one.

Momentum

Obama has the mo' now. His campaign appears to be finishing off with a series of large rallies all over the States.

The best Prime Minister Canada never had

Steve and Scott have fine posts discussing their thoughts on Stephane Dion's future.
I liked Dion a lot, but it must be recognized that he lost 27 seats. Given that we'll likely have another election in two or three years, after the Canadian economy tanks and the Conservatives can't handle it, I just don't know whether Dion could be strong enough to win those 27 seats back, plus find at least 50 more.
Iggy, on the other hand, maybe could.
Dion may find that he has inherited Robert Stanfield's title of the best Prime Minister Canada never had.

-If wishes were horses

I'm no economist but the idea that Canada's economy is "strong" enough not to be affected much by a American depression and global recession strikes me as just wishful thinking.

"Health" with air quotes

Crooks and Liars quotes John McCain's heartless, clueless debate moment:

"...health [indicates air quotes] of the mother. You know that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement to mean almost anything."

John McCain apparently things there are all sorts of slutty women, or, to use a McCain term, cunts, who get knocked up and then change their minds and try to pretend they're sick just so they can justify to a disbelieving world that they need a late-term abortion.
Via C&L, here's one woman who would have died without a late-term abortion:

In March of [1995], Watts was in the eighth month of a much-wanted pregnancy and was eagerly anticipating the birth of her first child. During a routine ultrasound (the only way to detect abnormalities that require late-term abortion), she discovered her baby had Trisomy 13, a chromosomal abnormality that causes severe deformities and carries no hope of survival.
Because her baby was already dying and because this put her own life at stake, Watts had an intact dilation and extraction (D and X) . . . "Losing my baby at the end of my pregnancy was agonizing," says Watts.

And here's two more:

When Congress first considered the ban in 1995, Watts testified on Capitol Hill. So did Viki Wilson of Fresno, Calif., who had a late-term abortion because the brain of the fetus she was carrying had developed outside the skull. So did Vikki Stella of Naperville, Ill., whose fetus had dwarfism, no brain tissue and seven other major abnormalities.
All three women told legislators they owed their health to late-term abortions and that a continuation of their doomed pregnancies posed grave health risks such as stroke, paralysis, infertility or even death.
As they campaign to save access to these procedures, Watts, Stella and Wilson point out that in virtually all cases, late-term abortions are the only way to respond to unanticipated complications: the death of the fetus inside the womb, problems that mean the fetus can't live outside the womb, or serious threats to the mother's health.
"No women has these procedures for frivolous reasons," says Stella. "They have them because it's their only choice."

Choice -- that's the key word. McCain does not respect it. Nor does he respect the women who make these choices.
Interesting, however, that for all of McCain's anti-abortion pandering at the debate, the fundies will be shocked to find out that McCain voted in favour of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's nomination to the Supreme Court -- I'll bet just about none of the fundies knew this, and they will find it unforgiveable.
Wait til they find out he voted for Stephen G. Breyer too!

They won't be bothered to vote for McCain

Yes, like Josh Marshall indicates, Obama is going to need millions of voters to overcome this year's GOP vote suppression and voter intimidation spectacular. But the GOP will find in the end that they cannot do much about the millions and millions of GOP voters who are just going to stay home this year.

Yeah, that about sums it up

Red Canuck says he is overwhelmingly underwhelmed with the election results:

Disappointment for Stephen Harper; no majority.
Disappointment for Stephane Dion; lost seats and lost Fortress Ontario.
Disappointment for Jack Layton; still in 4th place.
Disappointment for Elizabeth May; lost her riding and no elected MPs.
Satisfaction for Gilles Duceppe; but he's a separatist.
Cost: $300 million . . .

But here's a few silver linings: Justin Trudeau was elected. Michael Fortier lost. Ralph Goodale was re-elected. David Orchard lost. Bill Casey was re-elected with 70 per cent of the vote, which I would bet is the highest popular vote percentage in the country. And Edmonton-Strathcona may go NDP!

Strange days indeed

Its wrap up time.
Steve at Far and Wide does his Best Of Election 2008.
On the strategic voting front, Scott describes strategic voting in a way that finally makes sense to me, Cyberwanderer is for it, as is Woman at Mile 0, and RossK provides some links that show you how to vote strategically.
Jason Cherniak writes about why Stephane Dion should be Prime Minister.
I agree.
I must admit, at the beginning of this campaign, I did not think Dion realistically had much of a chance of beating Harper -- I thought Canada would be lucky to avoid a Conservative majority government. But over the last five weeks, whenever Dion has been knocked down, he just keeps getting up again. And he has landed some telling blows of his own -- he was ready to step up on the economy, and Harper was not; he has talked directly to Canadians and to the media throughout the campaign, and Harper has not; he expected Canadians would have the intelligence and thoughtfulness to comprehend and consider supporting a Green Shift policy, while Harper pandered to his base with divisive speeches about jailing 14-year-olds and cutting support for arts.
For all of his leadership posturing, Harper and the Conservative war room have run one of the clumsiest and most cynical campaigns in Canadian history. The StealthCons demonstrate how Conservative candidates were instructed not to defend what the Harper government is doing or plans to do -- I'm glad that Canadians are not going to reward such disrespectful behaviour.
As for Dion, he has shown Canadians what he stands for during this campaign. The Calgary Herald writes:

It took several weeks, but Dion gained his sea legs in time, his advisers hoped, for Canadians to have a second look at a man who learned on the stump how to show his conviction and to laugh at himself, especially his speaking style.
"Stephen Harper may speak better English than me," he began to tell each crowd for a guaranteed roar of approval, "but I speak the truth better than him in both official languages."