I support Peter MacKay

I was pleased to see the NDP provide their endorsement today of Peter MacKay. If you were following events in Ottawa today, you might be asking yourself how demanding his resignation qualifies as an endorsement. I have always maintained that the NDP serves a useful purpose in Canadian Politics, to tell us the opposite of what we should do. I agree with maybe 1 in 10 words spoken by 9 of 10 NDP members, and they always indicate to me exactly what not to think. If the NDP says MacKay should resign, that signals to me that he is doing a great job and should stay.

It is like that episode of Seinfeld where George does the opposite. I feel the same way about the NDP. "If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right!" You could easily get the feeling of obsessive compulsive partisanship if you read Rosemary Barton's Twitter today. Aside from the fact that she may suffer from a very real Twitter addiction, she kept insisting how important it was that the NDP was demanding MacKay's resignation. Rosemary has never creeped onto my "CBC Shit List", because she generally exhibits a naive innocence that can be endearing. But when you read it on her Tweets every 30 seconds, you start to see what is behind the surface. It unveils a bias, though I'd still prefer Rosie to E-Solo at Newman's old job.

From the Liberal side of the aisle, the motives are much more clandestine. Sure they are desperate to throw whatever mud they can at the government in order to try and make something stick to reverse trend lines; but also have you noticed in past contrived controversies, the Liberals turn up the volume a little bit extra when it involves MacKay. Why is that? Well he merged the two right parties, and in the last 30 years the right wing has won 70% of Canadian Federal elections when united. 0% when divided. In the minds of Liberal strategists, focusing a high energy particle beam on a perceived major fault line has long term bonuses. To many in the Liberal ranks, this is not about how fast the Tories cleaned up their torture treaty; this is about a targeted political assassination of the last leader of the Federal Progressive Conservatives.

The Liberal argument on the detainee issue is hypocritical at best. How about Omar Khadr? Bob Rae will now profoundly demand the Tories procure his release because he was a child soldier. Meanwhile, Mr Khadr spent the last four of his teenage years in American custody under a Canadian Liberal government that made no concerned effort to have this child soldier transferred into Canadian custody. Then the underfunded military bureaucracy neglected for 12 years of Liberal rule, did not respond quickly enough to a treaty the Liberals signed that allegedly led to torture. Surely I can't be the only one who thinks this whole hypocrisy is nuts!

If we must do an inquiry, so be it. I think it is a waste of money, just as the Oliphaunt Inquiry was a giant waste of our time and money. I trust Peter MacKay because I have been following his career in politics for a number of years, I know where he stands on every issue and I find him to be an honourable man. I will concede that the Tories made a mistake in the immediate release of Colvin’s testimony to focus on character assassination. They should have focused on if what Colvin says is true, what does that say about what he should have done and when, and how torture was rampant at the end of the Liberal reign? There were weaknesses in the Colvin testimony, and by resorting to the predominantly Liberal tactic of character assassination over issue deliberation, it did not reflect entirely well on the Government. That doesn’t mean any Canadians deserve a trial at the Hague.

At the end of the day, I support Peter MacKay

"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents."

-Sir Winston Churchill