Paul Wells revisits Ignatieff’s “pronoun problem”, saying in several paragraphs what I’ve been saying in a subject line over the past few months.
There’s been grumbling in Liberal ranks about what some call Ignatieff’s “pronoun problem” ever since he moved to Toronto in 2005. His pronoun problem is his tendency to use the first person plural — we, our — when discussing a country that isn’t Canada.
(Then again, I don’t get paid by the word).
Can you imagine somebody getting elected president of the United States whose 30-year stint outside the United States had ended less than three years earlier? Can you imagine a president of France who’d lived for 30 years in San Francisco or Seoul?
And even then, he pulls up just short of the finish line.
It’s not just that Ignatieff has lived more than 30 years out of Canada (though that alone should disqualify him), Mr. Wells. It’s that the only reason he’s back is to add another line to his resume. And therein lies Iggy’s real “pronoun problem”.
Canada – not worth living in unless they’ll make you Prime Minister.
Kate, to be honest I don’t care that he’s been out of Canada most of his adult life. Its an issue that pales in comparison to the rest of his problems.
In my view his biggest problem is he’s a Liberal. Membership in that bunch of rat-b@st@rds is reason enough not to vote for him. That he’s a lyin’, cheatin’, thievin’ socialist latte-liberal American as well is just icing on the cake.
Plus he doesn’t seem to be that bright, frankly.
I think the key problem is the totality of his self-interest. He’s not interested in Canada. He’s interested in only one thing, as kate points out – and that is adding the title of prime minister to his legacy. Period.
That’s the only reason he came back; he is not interested in Canada; he’s an urban latte cosmopolitan, at home only in the intellectual isolationism of the drawing rooms of London, New York, Boston.
His entire focus is on getting himself into this position. Every act, every statement is part of this personal agenda’s strategy.
He signed the Coalition not because he thought it would be, in itself, a good strategy for Canada; he signed it because he thought that it would get rid of Dion. Now, he tells us that he was ‘against it’ because it would have been a divisionary action in Canada.
He promoted the motion of ‘Quebec is a nation’ not because he believes in such a thing but because he wanted Quebec votes in his leadership campaign – and, the Quebec Liberal party did indeed jump for it.
Every statement, every action, that Ignatieff takes is for his personal goal. That’s the limit of his vision and focus. Himself.
Whether it’s meeting with Obama, trying to attach himself to the emotional appeal of Obama, or setting himself up as a Superior Wise Man and telling Harper that ‘you are on probation’ – each word, each action – has only one agenda. Ignatieff’s personal ambition. He has no interest in Canada other than it is a convenient domain to ‘finish his career’.
I’ll have to do some digging, but if I’m not mistaken Iggy himself said he had to be convinced to come back to Canada with the lure of being PM the deciding factor.
Turn the tables. How would the media or Canadians react if an individual who left Canada many years ago to pursue other opportunities in other countries returned to run as a CONSERVATIVE Prime Minister at the end of their career.
Not someone who was stationed out of the country working FOR and representing the interests of Canada as Lester B. Pearson was.
But someone who felt greener pastures were elsewhere for personal reasons and were only “incidentaly” Canadians because they were born here.
Say, Leslie Neilson, Michael J. Fox, …the list is long but I can’t think of them.
Can you even imagine the feeding frenzy and outrage?
“Ian Davey, son of Keith Davey, the celebrated Liberal organizer known as “the Rainmaker,” who has been named principal secretary. Davey convinced Ignatieff to leave his post at Harvard and move back to Canada. Davey ran Ignatieff’s 2006 leadership campaign.”
Oddly enough I had to find the cached page as that paragraph is now missing from the Star article. So, the man who wants to be PM had to be convinced to come back to Canada. Sounds like an ad to me.
Yeah, The Phantom, ET, paulsstuff, and Lorraine:
You’ve gotta watch those shifty eyes and the twitchy eyebrows that go along with the languidly arrogant Royal-We drawl … Is this a guy anyone can trust, let alone make the Prime Minister of Canada?
This guy ain’t no accidental tourist. He’s an opportunistic tourist of convenience, in the HOC only for his own aggrandisement — and, the pension.
Well, I can imagine the Americans electing a most likely Kenyian-born Negro who has never made a serious decision, has never had a real job, has absolutely no resume and is a well known Saul Alinsky clone who promised to destroy freedom and prosperity at an unprecedented rate? Because they did just that and he is doing what he said he would.
Times have changed. Iggy and Barry are two iconoclasts of the Me Generation even though there is a hefty age difference between them, they are very similar in their repulsiveness to sensible thinking people. The narcissists who vote … vote for themselves when they vote for people like Iggy and Barry.
I can imagine anything now.
Great article on this at Alberta Aardvark. The Gretzky Factor.
http://thealbertaardvark.blogspot.com/2009/02/ignatieff-and-gretzky-factor.html
Phantom,
You forgot to add “blood sucking” to the Count’s descriptives…He is after all, over 400 years old, came to Canada on a drifting ship with all it’s crew missing…;-)
“Day and night they toil, filling wood crates with decrepit earth deep from the bowel of the castle…”
Keanu Reeves describing what Dracula’s hired gypsies were doing in preparation for the Count’s future venture outside his homeland of Transylvania.
(1992 movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”)
I can’t get over how the media says that the voters in Quebec are so gaga over Ignatieff and now that he has come to save them all is forgiven with the Liberals who used them, lied to them and stole from them.
Before his “triumphant return” Ignatieff did reference having been in Quebec a few times. He said in one of his books that he knew about the Quebecois but he had not personally met one!!!!
That was because, he said, he only visited with his relatives who lived in Quebec and they were Russian.
Question: Were any of Ignatieff’s prior books translated into French? I doubt it since they were for the lofty small run press of University elites in the United Kingdom for the most part.
So, the French speaking people of Quebec don’t even know what he told his fellow international high brows about them (and it was not nice- not informed and out of touch with reality).
Good morning folks, I am noticing that Mr Ignatiff is whinging about the so called attack-ads as being “old fashioned politics” well he is old enough to know, wait he wasen’t here when P M Martin did that. I prefer to call them truth ads I also notice he attacks the medium and not the message which is not even in the nice try range. He should be thankful, they are a welcome distraction from the Delightful IRuby family and their “enlightened” labour practices. The “troops in our streets” ads came from the Liberals, I always thought this rich considering Mr. Trudeau is the one who did just that, in response to a minor problem, bit of overkill in retrospect. As far as old fashioned politics go, it is hard to beat a coronation of an appointed by the back-room- boys-parachuted-candidate for “old fashioned” politics, but then as a descended from royalty nation builder kinda guy hey he is “entitled to his entitlements” how LIBERAL>
Pompousity appears to be considered a virtue in Quebec.
There’s no such word as humility in their dictionaries.
They admire Iggy because he is seen as an ‘intellectual.”
Being able to use big words must establish some type of pecking order among the Quebecois, a nation within a united Canada.
I, Iggy.
I, Ruby.
We, Liberals,
We, Torontonians.
Etc.
Canada . . who the hell cares when there is “I” and “We” to idolize.
AND, as EBD pointed out on an earlier thread, and as Mark Steyn has fleshed out in a recent column, he has a domestic pronoun problem too with his sickening liberal-white-guilt-post-colonial-post-residential school, dumb-as-a-post use of WE to describe “Canadian society” as the collective criminal perp responsbile for the freezing death of those little Indian children.
This cat seems to have a bit of a Mr Bean aspect for me — a brainiac Mr Bean, although the braininess is doubtful!
The problem people have with Iggy is that they confuse intelligence with wisdom. A person can be very intelligent but remain a fool. My impression of Iggy is that he is more intelligent than wise and not as intelligent as the media etc would have us to believe.
Some of the dumbest people I know are “Intellectuals” !!
Maybe in all of his reading of wise tomes Mr. Ignatieff missed this truism from the bible:
A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.
Bible, Matthew xiii. 57.
In other words, he roamed the world dropping his little tidbits of “so called wisdom” and was worshipped for it because he was “from away”.
Now that he has returned he expects the same adulation???? When his “so called wisdom” has nothing to do with a Canadian experience?? When the country he thinks we are only exists in his imagination and has nothing to do with the reality of living a true Canadian life?
Professor Iggy’s empathy with O’s Narcissism: “we”, “we”.
His Highness Count Iggy lectures ex cathedra, from His Throne to all you “car dealerships”.
“”There are . . . Canadians who feel hope has abandoned their car dealerships, their small businesses, their family farm. We must send them the message – we are living this with you.”
urlm.in/clcg
paulsstuff; ” Oddly enough I had to find the cached page as that paragraph is now missing from the Star article.”
Juxtapose it.
I guess Americans are now in the Liberals’ good book. No stomping on dolls, no more us vs. them, no calls of “those damned Americans”. Now “we” want to be just like “them”????
I don’t see Ignatieff as much different than those who were “rescued” from Lebanon, came here to take advantage of us (health care, etc) and promptly returned without leaving a tax dollar behind. He’s paid taxes to other countries most of his life as you can be sure he did not keep a residence here. Now he’s back, telling us what we should think, and how we should behave and preparing for a nice pension. Just another Canadian of convenience. He has no clue. How is he so “popular”? I just don’t get it.
I agree with most of the comments here. However, Bubba, the only thing Trudeau ever did right was the War Measures Act. Uncle Sam had 100,000 troops on “exercises” in Fort Drum, New York inn October 1970 and if Trudeau hadn’t called in our troops, the U.S. would have intervened. The Americans do not tolerate instability on their borders or anywhere close (Granada, Cuba, Panama and the list goes on). Now, they’re invading us one American at a time and trying for the top job to boot!
Can you imagine somebody getting elected president of the United States…
Maybe not. But nor could I imagine someone getting elected president after fronting a group as extreme as the NCC. Nor could I imagine a President calling an unnecessary election and then hiding behind the GG’s skirts to prorogue parliament two months later…and so on and so on.
Iggy: “Make me an offer I can’t refuse and I will become a born-again Canadians .. for what it’s worth!!!”
So here we have Iggy the faux-Canadian, counterfeit leader of the esteemed Liberal party … refusing to tell Canadians how he as prime minister would run the country…!!!
Instead we dozey Canadians must obediently sit by quietly as the distinguished professor of human rights (torture, assassination, denial of rights, preemptive war) holds us in scintillating suspense awaiting his Message from the Mount.
When you stand back and take a long look at Liberal leader Ignatieff, you must conclude: “WTH have the Liberals done making this joker their leader and trying to peddle him as our next prime minister. Wasn’t Dion enough of an insult to Canadians .. and now you offer us this yankee doodle dandy …?????!!!!!!”
Incredulously, some Canadians will still vote Liberal in any next election to make Ignatieff the PM of Canada. Talk about hate-filled and traitorous …!!!!
And of course Wells steered well clear of the unthinkable:
Imagine a CONSERVATIVE annointing a leader who spent decades living in the US only to come back to lead us.
We wouldn’t be having fine debates about the appropriatness of even questioning it.
No, he or she would be gone – banished from the political scene, long before the shrieking from our media at such an outrage subsided.
The NCC, what a bunch of extremists! Lmao
The NCC, what a bunch of extremists! Lmao The word ‘dolt’ springs to mind…
Trouble is, they’re sending us all the WRONG Americans. Has been so ever since Vietnam.
But nor could I imagine someone getting elected president after fronting a group as extreme as the NCC. Nor could I imagine a President calling an unnecessary election and then hiding behind the GG’s skirts to prorogue parliament two months later…and so on and so on. — Posted by: philboi at May 16, 2009 1:09 PM
————————————–
Extreme you say?? .. How about this for ‘extreme’??:
“To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils : indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.” – Michael Ignatieff, NY Times Mag, 2004
Oh, and about proroguing Parliament … I guess you would have preferred the Dion-Layton-Duceppe Coalition Junta governing Canada through this global recession.
Your idea of Canada is not exactly democratic-based … since you seem burdened by the idea of of democratic “elections” … something your Coalition Junta would obviously avoid after seizing power.
Thank God that USian Bushbot fascist Ignatieff eschews a coalition with the socialists and separatists … or does he ???!!!!!
A MUST read from 2006 – the Toronto Star – Linda Diebel on Ignatieff.
…nuff said:
The myth grows. “It was Keith, an old friend of mine, who said, `He’d make a great prime minister,'” says Levine of Ignatieff’s delivery of the Keith Davey lecture in 1998. “It’s not that he didn’t have that ambition,” says political economist Stephen Clarkson. “He told people 15 years ago that he thought about coming back to become prime minister.”
http://www.thestar.com/article/154173
The MSM hates the attack ads, so they must be effective. With respect ET, lots of people have a narcissistic streak, and not just those we disagree with. Mr Harper has shown himself to quite a plotter too, and have always been supremely ambitious.
Frankly I think Ignatieff is kind of boxed in. In Quebec, where he has experienced most of his growth in support, Duceppe again holds the puppet strings. He can wait out the Grits on an election call, or help them pull the trigger when he thinks he can take back his support on the hustings.
The Liberals have the same old problem with a new leader – lack of policy setting expertise, where they no longer get away with the lie promise.
They have not, by any stretch, removed the stench of their theft of taxpayer dollars. That issue will not be settled until stolen funds are returned, and the political operatives who actually ran the show are held accountable (not jail cover bureaucrats and ad executives).
Now Ignatieff is saddled with the coalition, where Canadians made clear they preferred the judgement of Mr Harper. He signed the document, is on the record as saying it’s required, and now he’s trying to weasel out of it. That only works between elections.
If Harper fails to achieve majority next time, what imperative will force a political bedroom scene with the socialists and separatists? This kind of doubt, which Mr Ignatieff has done nothing to dispel, is deadly in an election campaign.
Don’t be fooled by the recent upsurge in (non-election campaign) polls. The Tories aren’t (calling EI bluff), and neither are the Grits.
The only thing that irks me is Duceppe, grinning in the corner, and leaving all of us (especially Quebec) worse off. But that is a topic for another day.
I believe what the Conservative’s attack ads have done successfully is to turn Iggy’s absence from Canada into an issue. People will come down on both sides of this issue, but it has become a question in many people minds, vs. something that was being glossed over or ignored. And it does bring up the question of his motivation, especially if he had to be coaxed to come back.
The elites, of course are contemptuous of the very idea of rejecting Ignatieff because of time spent abroad. I am wondering, though, where more ordinary people stand — not the ones who write columns or letters to the editor.
The book title and the timing of it’s launch seriously rubs me the wrong way, as well as actually having the audacity to say at the coronation that Harper wants to break up Canada – how stupid does he think we Canadians are? This is the behaviour of an opportunistic phony. Canada is not “unfinished” either – changing and evolving yes, but not unfinished. Gramps Grant was out-of-step with his non-vision too.
Observant:
Please try and live up to your name and observe that Obama now realizes it is impractical to close down Gitmo.
And, that Nancy Pelosi is a liar.
It is said you can judge the character of a person by how they treat their own family. Here’s an excerpt by Andrew Ignatieff – Michael’s brother:
In early 1989, he(Michael) came briefly to Toronto to spell Andrew off as caregiver — “‘once or twice a year, it’s my turn” — and shortly afterward, Granta published “Deficits,” a deeply moving account of a son looking after his mother, with a forensically detailed description of Alison’s deteriorating mental state.
Said Andrew: “I came in one evening and my father was really upset, and I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ and he said, ‘Michael’s written an article about your mother'”
There were family members — for example, Alison’s sister, Charity Grant, and her brother, George Grant, and his wife, Sheila — who could never bring themselves to forgive Michael for having publicly exposed his intensely private mother.
That summer, George Ignatieff died. Andrew was with him. Michael was in France.
http://ezralevant.com/2009/03/the-ignatieff-effect.html
Iggy wants to pull the big levers. He is interested in the foreign policy dimension. Do you think he cares one whit for fishery policy, agricultural policy or anything that doesnt involve being on the world stage.
Iggy would make a fine Canadian Ambassador to the UN, if we were ever on the security council again.
He would be happy there.
PM…he doesnt care about much other than foreign policy, so he’ll say anything about those other areas. He’ll be led around by his advisors and polls.
I don’t hate him, I don’t fear him (like i did Dion) but I am concerned about who pulls his strings.
You’ve got it all wrong–it’s Ignatieff ME!
http://ignatieff.me/
Nor could I imagine a President calling an unnecessary election
I suggest you Google variouis combinations of “President” Chretien “early election call” +majority +floods. It’s probably even covered in Wiki if you’re too busy to Google around the Net. [And then you might want to Google “longest-serving minority government in Canadian history” and see who is mentioned under that search.]
BTW, thank you for the thealbertaardvark link. It was especially refreshing after having seen (but not read) a MSM piece linked at National Newswatch on Saturday of an Ignatieff apologist opining that Iggy having spent more of his life outside of Canada was no different than Gretzky now having spent more of his life (allegedly–I didn’t read it to see how many years he’d supposedly spent outside of Canada) outside of Canada.
I … me … me … mine.
I’m sure the msm will quickly rush to the PM’s defence the next time the Liberal’s mention he is an Albertan and therefore the people of Eastern Canada should not vote for him
Isn’t that the Liberal tactic commonly used in Quebec? Point out the PM is from Alberta (regardless of the fact he is from Ontario), and get all that anti-west resentment going to sway votes.
AGAIN!!! I Ask!!! Has any MSM asked Iggy if he had applied for, or received, citizenship of the UK or US?
If not when will sombody ask him and put an end to this “Liberal power lust” via the American Prime Minister in waiting that represents a riding in Canada’s largest American city, aka Toronto?
Ignatieff reminds me of the type of person that we typicaly get moving to our area here in Grey/Bruce.
they have lived all their lives in the Emerald City(toronto)they sell & pack up move here. Then they act as if they are more informed about our area Then those that have lived here all their lives. They complain about this & that how we should do things, how we dont know what we are talking about & want to make change to suit their lifestyle.
I related this story in readers tips This is also what Ignatieff reminds me of, I was in Scotland & England in 1978 visiting family while their i was in this pub in Ruddington Nottingham England having a pint of larger when this chap asked me if i was an American, No iam Canadian. Canadian! He loved Canadians However he proceeded to tell me What was wrong with Canada & how we could solve all of our issues, I politely took it all in, but it was non stop & i was getting a little more iritated as he went on. Then i asked the Question? How long did you live in Canada? Never was the answer, Never been. Then i asked So what makes you then an authority on Canada? Well because iam iam….. I said What an arrogant A*hole that has never been to Canada but knows more about Canada then Canadians do. I was just about to tell Arrogant A**hole to piss off, when the pub owner interceded & told the arrogant a-hole to get out. the bar tender apologized & bought me a pint. I later found out after a few more that the pub doubled as the British Legion in the village I produced my Canadian Legion membership & showed him, Never bought a pint after that.
I don’t know Kate. It seems to me that Iggy’s pronoun problem is more along the lines of…
Me…After thirty years of living the life of a cosmopolitan intellectual abroad the hicks in Podunk, Canada are finally worthy of my leadership.
Think Garth Turner with an Ivy League pedigree and half the conviction to principle.
Then again a Liberal leader with the narcissism of Garth and the naive arrogance of Steffy is sure fun to watch.
Syncro
Thanks for the great posts Kate. Much better here than some of those more gossipy blogs that are pretty close to being as bad as MSM are – and yes, some are tory blogs.
My new favs. have you and Stephen Taylor tops with Janke, and Paulstuff a close second.
Those others are kind of well….not helpful but maybe provide some fodder for those tabloids type journalists.
Wells is dead-on.
Iggy’s all about Iggy and Canadians’ hate arrogance and entitlement. Isn’t that why we sent the Libs. packing?
“as a Canadian never allowed me to dream…I believe the American dream.”
– a quote from one of Ignatieff’s books
I read this a couple years ago off a website. Can anybody research this a little more thoroughly by going thru Ignatieff’s poorly written books. I don’t have the time – but I’m almost certainly there’s something like that in there.
About the Gretzky comparison the LibLoggers are throwing around.
Gretzky STARTED his career in Canada; pursued his opportunities in Canada, made an international name for himself in Canada and is known to all to be Canadian.
Ignatieff was turfed in his early 20’s from a teaching job at the University of BC; turned down on his request to become an Assistant Professor and left Canada. He had NO successes in Canada before he left and except in the smallest of circles was not even known to be a Canadian as, from his writings, he was quite ashamed of Canada. Too parochial for him, boring, uninspiring – no real accomplishments since his grandfather was there for the Last Spike, blah blah.
BIG difference don’t you think?
Paul Wells writes “Can you imagine somebody getting elected president of the United States whose 30-year stint outside the United States had ended less than three years earlier? Can you imagine a president of France who’d lived for 30 years in San Francisco or Seoul?”
Verily. It just wouldn’t happen. And as Lorraine mentioned above, can you imagine a Conservative leader who’d spent decades in the United States — and who, while he was living there, referred to American as his country — jetting in to take a run at being prime minister? After he’d quipped that he hoped that a particular U.S. university would keep his post open in case he didn’t make it?
And try to imagine a Conservative candidate for prime minister referring to Canada as “the place on earth that, if I needed one, I *would* call home.” Imagine if Stephen Harper said he would call Canada home if he didn’t have other places to reside in.
So much for the Royal We. When Ignatieff jets up here and refers to “us” it’s incorrect pronoun usage, because the toothless proles he’s addressing DO call Canada home. By his own description he’s not one of us.
P.S. This bit from Wells’ column really made me laugh: “I studied in Paris for nine months. But when I said ‘Let’s get a beer,’ I didn’t mean, ‘Let me get a beer along with all the people of my adopted nation, France.'”
I’m with “Phantom”.
I’m not sure I really even care that Ignatieff has spent a lot of time outside Canada.
I’m just not prepared to vote for a Liberal government. Period.
Libs are throwning around names like Gretzky, Fox, Neilsen etc….
However the Libs do forget too add something to those names they are using. And that is, those names have not forget their roots, They dont just make one or 2 visits a yr home they are constantly making trips home to see family & friends they are constantly giving endorsements for Canadian charities & ventures.
Gretzky is leader of the Liberal party and wants to be PM???!!! Who knew?
What a silly comparison.