Too Much Anger to Succeed--Toronto Star (re: Harper)

[Gloria]

3//The Toronto Star, Canada Jun. 5, 2005. 08:28 AM http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1117921814379&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes



TOO MUCH ANGER TO SUCCEED

After 23 years in politics, Stephen Harper still has a penchant for marginalizing moderates within his Conservative caucus, ridiculing the patriotism of Liberal voters and working out his anger issues in public



David Olive

Look at that face, that hateful face.

-Sam Rayburn, Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, watching a televised address by Richard Nixon



Richard Nixon somehow made it to the top of the greasy pole. It's helpful to take that view of history in trying to imagine Stephen Harper as the man who can lead a united right to the New Jerusalem.



As dysfunctional in his own way as the dethroned Stockwell Day, Harper has twice squandered the chance effortlessly gained by the sponsorship scandal to form a government. He is, Tory insiders began saying last week, girding for a third try this fall, hoping the potency of the Grewal tapes matches that of the Gomery revelations.



It, too, will likely fail.



In a nation that favours public figures who project a sunny optimism, Harper traffics more heavily in bile than any major political party leader since John Diefenbaker.



Harper regards Liberals of every description as "corrupt," and their precarious government, in all its grand and sundry aspects, "morally reprehensible." Those who fail to align with Harper's worldview he labels monsters, harlots and underworld figures.

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[Maple]

1. Constant complaining,

constant negativity, and all this raving are certainly doing him in. Canadians are a laid-back group on the whole, so this strategy or whatever it is, simply doesn't work.

[Lautremont]

2. And I thought Stockwell was a clown.

Which he was. I was sad when Harper, who looked like just another Reform dickhead, but a boring one, became the party leader. "Who will do the antics?" I cried out in despair. But I forgot I was talking about conservatives.

'"Don't touch me," he said.' Priceless.

[Spazito]

3. Thanks, Gloria, for this!

I posted it in the Canadian forum, with credit appropriately given to you, as it is an excellent op-ed that is dead on, imo, in it's analysis of Harper.

[Lisa]

4. "New Jerusalem" -- isn't that an NDP thing?

The new play about Tommy Douglas is even titled "Arrows of Desire" (a reference to the poem).

[whosinpower]

5. Makes my heart sing

To read such an appraisal of the man.