My apologies for getting to this so late – I’ve been out most of the afternoon.
Open thread. Please stay on topic.
Results at CBC, (though at certain points in the evening, they were having problems keeping the facts straight.)
From the comments, this observation – “Green Party in Que garnishes less than 4% of the vote. In the media so-called hot-bed of Kyotoism.”
Indeed.
This from reader “dast” has merit, I think;

Coyne’s analysis around his claim that Charest was Harper’s man, “and make no mistake” about it, is completely flawed. The Charest vote is a one-for-one federal liberal vote which, as things stand, is a vote for Dion. Moreover, every single anglo Quebecker would understand this to be self-evident.
If one excludes the anglo population, the fracophones are pretty evenly devided between the left and right. And I don’t mean Coyne-type pseudo “conservatives”, but the real freedom-loving types, like they have in Texas. If these right wing fracophones have voted PQ in the past, it’s probably because they found Quebec’s leftist anglos and the Coynes of the ROC so bloody offensive.
Harper’s man in this election was in fact Mario Dumont. Indeed, every single Dumont vote was already a Harper vote, and is certain to be one for the foreseable future. I’d say that right there is Harper’s majority.
While it’s evident that the MSM are factually challenged and wildly biased with regard to Harper and conservatives, many Conservatives take the MSM’s “facts” about Quebec without question. Consider that ‘Quebec separation’ is an idea that both the federal and Quebec provincial Liberals are desparate to keep alive; it’s the clan war of which they are half. The leftist Quebec media, both english and french, also owe their existance to the clan war; it’s the only narrative they know.
What is always left out of this narrative is the fact that there is absolutely zero chance of Quebec separating, and there never really was much chance. Most PQ voters don’t even consider it. Yet it’s that fiction that has kept the federal liberals in power forever. Pro-sepratation rhetoric or anti-separation rhetoric just gets Liberals elected to Ottawa. Please remember that. Separation is a fiction!

From Hansard, Mar. 19 2007;

Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in an earlier answer, the minister failed to net out the $600 million he will take from farmers annually by his attack on the Canadian Wheat Board. A friend of the Minister of Agriculture, the Market Choice Alliance has, by letter attached to a Conservative member’s parliamentary mail-out, called upon farmers to inform other neighbours on who is and who is not a Wheat Board supporter.
The establishment of an enemies list in Canada is wrong. Will the Minister of Agriculture condemn the establishment of this enemies list by neighbour informing on neighbour today?
Hon. Chuck Strahl (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it reminds me of that old Chilliwack song, She talks crazy talk. I am not actually sure what he is talking about, but I know this, we want to listen to western Canadian farmers and we want to hear what they say about marketing choice. We think they want to move to more marketing choice.

h/t This Week In Agriculture.

Stéphane Dion’s Blog Campaign Co-Chair, president of the Richmond Hill Federal Liberal Riding Association and York Region Area Director for the Liberal Party of Canada makes a startlingly frank admission;

I support public education, where tax dollars are used to pay for a helpful social program that the market did not provide efficiently. I also support a government organized child care system because the market has failed to provide this important social program. Further, I support public health care because it is a manner of rationing scarce medical resources in a way that the market could never do.

(And don’t miss this child care pile-on in the comments.)

Heh;

A total of 28 questions had passed before Stéphane Dion rose for the fourth time. This immediately seemed a curious development and the House of Commons anxiously waited to see what the Liberal leader might be up to.
Speaking seriously and looking solemn, he gazed directly at Stephen Harper and asked that the Prime Minister dispatch his hapless defence minister, Gordon O’Connor.
Now, as they say, we were cooking with weapons-grade plutonium.

Looks like Stephane Dion picked a bad budget day to be Liberal party leader placeholder;

Well known “Harper Liberal” Joe Comuzzi has said he’ll be voting for the budget. Same goes for “Harper Liberal” Keith Martin who on one hand calls the budget “uninspiring” but still says he plans to prop-up Harper.

Speaking of the budget, here’s some free Saskatchewan punditry for you:
The non-renewable resources/equalization issue only has staying power with the Conservatives’ natural critics or the left-leaning one time swing voter. (Even more so with Lorne “I never met a civil servant I couldn’t hire” Calvert neatly redirecting anger with his announcement that property tax relief is no longer possible.)
Most of those who vote for the party federally want this damned province off equalization and out of the hands of whiny “where’s mine?” socialists once and forever. You know – like Alberta.
Nope, it’s not equalization that will prove to be the long standing irritant.
It’s the gas guzzler levy.
UPDATE – looks like he picked a bad budget to become a team builder. “Former cabinet minister Joe Comuzzi has been expelled from the Liberal caucus for supporting the Conservatives’ fiscal plan.”
An aboriginal viewpoint on the budget that you won’t get on the CBC;

If we go along with many of the stats on Aboriginals in the workforce, we can assume that thousands of lower to middle class workers, will see the benefits of the Conservative budget where it matters the most…on the dinner table, or money for new furniture, clothes etc. My family, with three under the age of eighteen, could expect close to $1,000 actual dollars. When else do you see your local reps doing that much for you ?? Give me the fifteen hundred rather than the Manitoba Metis Federation or any other Ab rep, where they would take the government cash to form committees, charge for delivery of services and then at the end of the day, we would get maybe a C note worth of service benefits.

Joshua Kubinec peels back the curtain on the policy vacuum better known as the leader of Canada’s Green Party.;

We noticed a very interesting pattern of her “saying whatever she thought the crowd wanted to hear,” and I think that if you are constantly calling her out on everything she says, you’ll force her into a position where she’ll constantly have to be backtracking or adjust to a more consistent message.
[…]
Whatever happens though, do not let her hide as a snake in the grass and play the whole “we’re neither left nor right.” If she does not want to take a stand on where she lies on the political spectrum then drag her there kicking and screaming and force her to be honest with people about who she is and what she stands for. When you do this sort of thing, you have to be firm about it, and not give up any hint of remorse for doing so. Elizabeth May played the victim role very well when we attacked her in London-North-Centre, and the Central Nova riding association would do well to develop a way to confront her in such a way so as to not give her the opportunity to make it look like your bullying her.

Anyone who’s heard her flirt her way through a talk radio interview will recognize this;

In London-North-Centre, Lizzie was able to appeal to people here because she played what I’m going to call the “I’m so cute” routine. She constantly talked about how she doesn’t know much of anything, and how she’s just a simple Green Party leader, she loves kissing babies, etc. etc. etc.

Good analysis that should be useful for political adversaries – and media pundits, who really deserve to be taken to the woodshed for allowing her little act to go on as long as they have.

An open thread for your links and reaction. (Stay on topic, please)

John Fund;

Every GOP candidate is nervously watching the reaction to his possible entry. J.C. Watts, an Oklahoma congressman from 1995 to 2003, has endorsed him: “I define Fred Thompson as AC, what’s AC? All class.”
Fan blogs for “Law and Order” note that since the show is especially popular among women, a Thompson race could help close the GOP’s “gender gap.” The most pithy comment is from Craig Hammond, a former mayor of Bluefield, W.Va. He told the Bluefield News: “He’s the tall timber we’ve been waiting for. He’s the total package. He can hold the red states and pick up a few blue ones along the way.”

Here’s my prediction: If Fred Thompson formally enters the race for the US Presidency in 2008, watch for a Law & Order episode in which Arthur Branch is caught on tape surrounded by naked 8 year old boys.
Update – Pajamas Media exclusive interview with Fred Thompson on the Iranian reaction to the movie “300”.

I must say that I’m impressed that Hollywood took on a politically incorrect villian. Must have run out of neo-Nazis. So now these sensitive souls in Iran think that Hollywood is part of a U.S. government conspiracy to humiliate them into submission. I can only wish we were that effective.

Winning hearts and minds among the snooty resident and faux-greenie demographic.

The Nevada Democratic Party had agreed to a debate in August between Democratic presidential candidates – hosted by Fox.

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.
You’d think the deal called for having Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter mock the candidates between comments. No, even unfiltered, unedited, live debate between loyal Democrats couldn’t be entrusted to Fox News.
The approach of outfits such as MoveOn.org is so juvenile it’s laughable. Imagine if every political organization created litmus tests for news organizations before agreeing to appear on their programming. Republicans would have boycotted PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, National Public Radio and The Associated Press decades ago.

Faster please!

A campaign worth keeping your eye on;

It has been said that it takes 5,000 people to talk you out of running for President and only 5 to talk you into it. Whatever the ratio, it would be in reverse for Thompson. Surely, if the Republican electorate seems extremely unhappy, if Thompson is seen as the great conservative hope and the party fathers came to him and begged him to run, he would.

More at RCP.

I heard a bunch of talking heads saying that [she tried it* and it didn’t work, so her people won’t let her do it again]. But, apparently her speech in Selma wasn’t the first time she tried to cloak her inner Yankee…

Canada’s Nobel Prize nominee gets a review at the Daily Ablution:

It is in the capacity of hope-beacon that Ms. Watt-Cloutier heads a delegation which will travel to Washington this week – “entering the very belly of the beast”, as reporter Andrew Gumbel puts it. The reason for her journey (presumably to be made by kayak) is, according to an Indy article published earlier this month, to “provide first-hand testimony of how global warming is destroying their way of life and to accuse the Bush administration of undermining their human rights.“

He thinks her trip may have been to the wrong address, though.

They came not to praise Pearson, but to bury him!

“I have no doubt in my mind that they would try to eradicate everything that has been good by the Liberal party and by great Liberals in this country from the history books if they could,” said Todd Russell, a Liberal MP for the riding of Labrador. “Fortunately right now, they can’t, but it just again speaks to the nature of this particular Conservative government.”
[…]
“For somebody to think that you’ve got to put a shroud over it or build a wall to hide it to keep it out of view from American government officials that is just pathetic and I think those American government officials will think it’s pathetic too,” Ralph Goodale, the Liberal Government House Leader, said outside the House of Commons.

If you missed this last evening on CTV, the video is a hoot.
(If someone spots a Youtube version, drop the link in the comments.)

From this day forward I pledge to reject the propogandists of a gender biased Canadian media.
From this day forward I pledge to fight to my last breath the male supremacist patriarchy known as the Liberal Party of Canada.
Therefore:
From this day forward the young member of Canadian “nobility” seeking the Liberal nomination in Papineau shall be known to you as :

More…

Looks like all we can do now is dope the St. Bernards, keep our fingers crossed and yell, “BOO!!!”

Now I understand * why she doesn’t allow comments.

Looks like Dion picked a bad day to stake his leadership on party discipline;

A Senate committee says controversial provisions in the anti-terror law should be extended for three years, but it has also suggested more safeguards for civil liberties be built into the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The special Senate committee says the two elements of the act dealing with preventive arrests and investigative hearings have a place in dealing with terrorism and should be renewed.

A reader emails;

Martha Hall Findlay, the Liberal who was forced to step aside in Newmarket-Aurora to permit the floor crossing of [Belinda Stronach] … was queried on the Michael Coren Show tonight as to which riding she was going to run in. We received an equivocating answer but also perhaps revealing. She stated, in effect, that she was defering the choice of riding to someone who had not yet declared their intentions to seek renomination.

Canadian sponsored development in Afghanistan is being hamstrung by restrictive travel rules.
While we turn down our thermostats … the air conditioning of Asia begins. So long as they leave the windows open, eh?
Add yours in the comments.

Stephen Harper is to Stéphane Dion…
… what Maggie Thatcher is to Marie Antoinette.

If you can’t lead, threaten.

The Anchoress;

I guess when you feel you’re entitled to your presidency and don’t really have to do the hard work of explaining much of anything, then you shouldn’t have to endure the typical heat of politics. But all of this demonstrates to me exactly why Hillary has stayed out of the kitchen and away from baking cookies all these years: She cannot stand the heat. And she is utterly artless. She gallumphs, spins, ducks, weaves, hauls out Bill (or simply mentions his holy name) as soon as things get difficult, and then runs for cover.
This is a woman who never, ever apologizes for anything but she always seems to need apologizing to.

“Le Petit Green Machine” stumbling into an election

commentary by Charles Adler.

Stephane Dion is making it impossible for Stephen Harper to keep the Tory guns holstered. The politics of the man who I think of as “Le Petit Green Machine” is baffling all the pros. Push the rewind button. It was only two weeks ago that Dion’s Liberal Natural Resources critic, Mark Holland waved a red flag at Alberta’s resource sector and the provincial government, all in the name of the sacred cause de jour, climate change. Holland indicated that if the Energy industry didn’t curtail its plans for the oil sands, a federal government under Liberal management would act unilaterally to arrest any further exploration of the oil sands. Holland later danced on the op ed pages to say he didn’t say what he did say. He tried to hide in Peter Lougheed’s treehouse, indicating that the Liberal agenda was simpy an echo of the former Alberta premier’s most recent sentiments. I am but a lowly journalist. It would take an army of archeologists to excavate the ruins of every Lougheed statement ever made to discover a single sound bite where Lougheed is calling on the Federal marshall to ride into Calgary and say, “Hand over the six shooters, boys. You’re done.”
While Mark Holland could be forgiven by some for being a rookie who simply didn’t know when to shut the pie hole, his boss is supposed to be a professional pol. That begs the question, “Why was Stephane Dion talking out loud about rolling Canada’s anti terror legislation back to the pre 911 era?” Credit some Liberals for trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this file. Dion received rhetorical blowback from Irwin Kotler the justice minister who introduced the legislation, Ann McLellan, the public safety minister and Bob Rae who was hired by the government that Dion served, to do an autopsy of the Air India terror plot and make recommendations. Dion has chosen to plant his feet in ideological cement on this issue. Perhaps he believes in sustainable development for Al Qaeda.
The Dion gang has also attacked the Conservative strategy to get tougher judges on the Canadian bench, antagonizing every victims right group in the nation. They feel the most appropriate metaphor for justice under the Liberals was a “get out of jail free” card. The Liberals say they aren’t opposed to tough judges. They just don’t want any with close ties to Conservatives. Problems is Liberals over the years appointed plenty of Judges who not only leaned Liberal, but raised money for the party. The mother’s milk of politics is money, and Liberals are nothing if not sourcream on this one.
No chronicling of recent bungle in the jungle would be complete without including the name Denis Coderre. Yes he is the man who spoke last year at a pro Hizbollah rally in Quebec. Perhaps that is why Dion has chosen him to be the Liberal defence critic. Coderre this week launched a scathing attack on the country’s chief of defence staff, Rick Hillier. The general had the good sense to comment on the obvious. In a speech, Hillier referred to the many years of defence cuts as the decade of darkness. Denis Coderre, got up in the House of Commons and accused the general of being a political prop of the Conservative government.
Question: Which of the above plays sound like those of a political team that can win back the hearts of Canadian voters? It will take a team of wild horses to prevent Stephen Harper from green lighting the next election.
Just watch the PM in Question period. Every day he goes up against the Liberals, he knows that he is punching below his weight division, punching the opposition leader’s lights out and eventually punching Dion’s ticket back to a unversity campus in Montreal.
When discussing politics with Liberals away from the tv cameras and radio microphones, it’s hard not sense the frustration they have with the new leader. They knew that Paul Martin looked like a three dollar bill when he declared every single issue his top priority. Similarly they know that Stephane Dion cleaving to the Kyoto nipple makes him look like a one trick baby. None of the Liberals are complaining about Dion’s linguistic challenge. It’s his political tool kit , all hammers and no screw drivers.
Stephen Harper has a choice. He can continue to observe Stephane Dion giving the Tories their daily grub, the way the way the old lady in front of the cathedral feeds the pigeons. Or Harper can say to his caucus, “Our bellies are full. It’s time to plunder.”

See also: this smackdown, at Officially Screwed.