Posted on 06/01/2003 7:03:21 AM PDT by Clive
Let's face it. Our prime minister is out of control.
Mistaking the split in the Canadian political right for massive popular support for himself, Jean Chretien's ego has grown beyond managing. He struts about the world taking bows for accomplishments not of his doing, holding himself and his government up as models for the world to follow, insulting our friends and amusing our enemies. He is an embarrassment to most of us and a danger to our welfare, for sure.
Anyone with a statistical bent can tell you the polls in which he claims to receive 51% approval are not so much an endorsement of him and his policies as an indictment of the opposition arrayed against him in Parliament. The Tories, one step away from extinction, hardly register. Stephen Harper and the Alliance have not given up feuding long enough to make a real mark.
For fear one of them might take encouragement from a good reading in the polls, Canadians give the nod to the devil they know.
Look one layer down in the polls, though, and you find a whopping majority of Canadians feel Chretien should have left office a long time ago. We voters are not fools. We can see the damage he's doing to our international reputation. We can see how he is turning the U.S. against us in the name of his own aggrandizement.
Those polled obviously have little faith in the political alternatives to Chretien and the Liberals, thus his 51%. Still, from my perspective, it's hard to believe any rationale exists for support of this pumped up little jackanapes.
His latest untimely, unseemly and unnecessary assault on the U.S. for its looming deficit has both his friends and foes running for the hills. Even some Liberals, now that his clout within the party has been reduced to threatening a snap election, are desperately seeking to put some distance between themselves and their leader.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague called Chretien's criticism of President George Bush's policies ill-advised: "Name calling and pointing fingers is not a helpful way to demonstrate leadership at a time when people are seeking it and, with those comments, certainly not getting it."
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, most anxious for a sympathetic American hearing in the face of the west's mad-cow difficulties, questioned the wisdom of the prime minister's censure at this time. "Anything that further worsens our relationship with the United States does nothing but more harm," he said.
Even former prime minister Brian Mulroney got into the act. He said Chretien has committed a career's worth of gaffes, including the latest, which have been enormously hurtful to Canada's image abroad.
There can be no doubt the PM is aware of the damage his gratuitous criticisms could eventually wreak on Canada. He's well aware of the ongoing negotiations over steel and lumber and how devastating a tough stance by the U.S. could be. He understands the dangers of alienating a vital ally and one's largest trading partner.
So why does he persist?
I think he can't help himself. He always has been more interested in politics than government. While the legacy he claims to desire would be more logically secured by sound policy and effective legislation in any number of areas, Chretien's natural inclination is to work the political side.
He believes most Canadians are anti-American at heart. I think he hears a cheer somewhere in his head each time he takes a poke at the United States. There is a certain confidence and assurance in him when he is riding his anti-American hobbyhorse. Certainly there is an unbearable smugness about the whole extreme-left, anti-American portion of his cabinet when they are belittling President Bush.
It's born out of their belief we share their feelings of superiority over, and their animosity toward, Americans. I think they're wrong, in the main, but they take it as a given.
After a lifetime in the game, this sort of politics is child's play for the prime minister. I think we will get more of it before his departure next February. He'll think he's helping to define Canada as an independent country. He'll mistake it for leadership. In that fashion, he'll think he is building his legacy.
In fact, he'll be undermining our relationship with a good neighbour and friend. He will, for no good end, cause us nothing but difficulties in the future.
It was especially egregious when he announced to the world that if any Canadian ships in the Mid-East happened to take any Iraqi enemy, they were to refuse to turn them over to the coalition forces.
That not only made the statement that he wasn't allowing Canada to be part of the coalition, but that he was identifying with the coalition's enemy.
I no longer feel that way, and while I realize that many Canadian citizens especially in the western provinces, consider America as a friend, I don't think the government of Canada is. Chretien is not alone in his anti-Americanism. It's rampant and it's the dominant political force there. I have no reason to think that will change even after Chretien retires to a psychiatric institution.
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