REALITY...

Opinion

Editorial: A politician, not a saint

He was little more than the leading salesman for a discredited brand of politics. Despite the prolonged rending of hearts in Ottawa and Toronto over the death of Jack Layton, that - and a buck-fifty - would buy you a coffee in most parts of the rest of Canada.

Layton turns into a legend


John Ivison: How did this happen? How, in the space of a week, did Jack Layton become a Canadian icon — Tommy Douglas and Terry Fox all wrapped in one?


...and from the public; "Oh please John, Layton's purported status as a legend and/or an icon is an invention of the Canadian media, many of whose employees are clearly in need of an aging pop-pol to go gaga over.  Layton's iconic stature will fade within a couple of weeks of his burial as you and your colleagues find other newsworthy flashes in the pan to blabber about.  Dress him up however you like, he was at the end of the day an opportunistic politician who stood for whatever might get him another photo opp.  If anything, this bizarre adulation is putting more people off than it is bringing over to Layton's cause - whatever that was."