A Political TURF War

A "proper little Canadian lefty"

Wonderful words from Christie Blatchford in the Globe and Mail:

The most wonderful thing about the Lesley Hughes story is not that Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion finally asked her to step down yesterday [Sept. 26], or her odd beliefs that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and that the war in Afghanistan is the result of "lengthy failed negotiations between American business and the Taliban over access to drugs and oil [oil!?!}," or even her bewildered, injured insistence yesterday that her firing "is so incredibly unjust."

No, what is wonderful is that Ms. Hughes has had such a good go of being such a proper little Canadian lefty (I rarely use words like this, but there ain't no other way to describe her) that I have no doubt she's genuinely bewildered.

She's played by all the rules as she knew them, embraced all (well, okay, almost all, the Sept. 11 conspiracy theory, being a shade out there) the right causes, and what, now this kick in the teeth?

Not even a Raging Granny, one of those women who with hideous regularity show up at protests and the like to sing hideous ditties, could have summoned up greater righteous indignation.

As a perfect illustration of the peculiar sort of Canadianness Ms. Hughes seems to embody was what she said yesterday when a TV reporter broke the news to her that Mr. Dion was giving her the boot, and then, it being television, asked her how she felt.

"I guess this is how soldiers die in trenches, eh?" she said. "This is how it must feel."

Only a particular kind of Canadian woman of a certain age who has spent her life in the safe and cozy confines of Winnipeg, making a decent living and reputation as a caring social activist and never coming within a hair of a battlefield could compare her suffering as a cruelly aborted Liberal candidate to that of a dying soldier...

Kate McMillan a nicely acid post on the role bloggers played--compared to the major media--in Ms Hughes' downfall. Meanwhile, the NDP has its own troofer troubles (surprised?), and the Greens have their own problems in comprehending terrorism--a post by Robert Jago (via Terry Glavin):

Green Party candidates on the record: “Is Hezbollah a terrorist organization”?

And take a look at Norman Spector's THE COLUMN I’M GLAD I DIDN’T WRITE.

Posted by markc