Harper: The Man Who Would Be King

[ClusterFreak]

Many/most may already be aware of this, but for those who aren't....this is an excerpt from a CBC News online column about The Harper and McGuinty's first meeting on Thursday in Toronto:

Finally, Harper agreed to meet McGuinty. He would be in Toronto on Thursday and they could meet in a downtown hotel for 40 minutes. Harper arrived and left by a back door. He would not be available to answer questions and no photographers were allowed in to record the meeting. He shrugged off the premier of Canada's largest province.

After his session with McGuinty, Harper went to the hotel next door. The occasion was a Conservative fund-raising dinner. There, the man who was not going to get himself involved in provincial politics saluted Ontario's Conservative leader John Tory as "the next premier of Ontario."

He went on: "Ontario needs John Tory because a strong Canada needs a strong Ontario and because John Tory is a nation-builder."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/realitycheck/20060505gray.html

>>is there a cockier, more arrogant, more smug and imprudently self-assured asshole currently operating within the federal political spectrum?

I think not.

[Spazito]

1. No matter how sternly he has been told by his 'backers', Harper

just can help but show his real, arrogant, assholish self and I bet it will only get worse as time goes on. I hope it does, his arrogance has caused him major problems before and will again.

[ClusterFreak]

4. It really is amazing how tone deaf this guy is...

He's so inundated with 'puffery', so in love with his own reflection, that he pulls this kind of shit. It's 'reflected' - as it were - in everything he does, and has done, from the git go. Jaw-dropping arrogance and paranoia-infused super-secrecy and duplicity. Harper has hitched his wagon not merely to the falling star of American neo-conservatism, but to it's burnt out equivalent: the 'White Dwarf'. Someone should tell this stupid bastard that Chimpy's poll numbers are right around the freezing mark fahrenheit, that Scooter Libby is about to get a cellmate in Karl Rove, that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice have lied so much and so often that their pants are literally on fire, and that the whole friggin' bunch are this (pinches forefinger and thumb together) close to self-immolation.

And yet, Steve, the brilliant political tactician that he is, figures "Hey! Fuck yeah, I wanna model my governing style after the Testy Kid running the show south of the border."

What a maroon.

Nevermind the "majority territory" polling of recent weeks, that is nothing short of Canadians saying how sick and tired they are of politicians and politicking, and that they DO NOT want to be asked to go to the polls for a THIRD time since 2004. They want, IMO, stability and for Steve's government to get down to work and LEAVE THEM ALONE.

:rant: ....there, I feel better now.:hi:

[Spazito]

5. LOL, good rant! n/t

[CHIMO]

2. The Bigger They Are...

Charest key to Harper's fiscal deal

When it comes to the fiscal imbalance, Stephen Harper has already made his bed with Quebec's Jean Charest.

The question now is whether he can woo Dalton McGuinty into it.

By setting a 10-month deadline to come up with a new fiscal deal with the provinces, Harper has staked Charest's re-election prospects, as well as his own, on a successful outcome to the negotiations.

While McGuinty could afford and, under some circumstances, possibly even benefit politically from walking away from a deal, Charest would not survive a failure.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146741320562&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907622983

Harper sends McGuinty a clear message

After meeting Premier Dalton McGuinty for barely 45 minutes last evening, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stepped from his hotel room in downtown Toronto to the adjacent convention centre to attend a provincial Conservative fundraising dinner.

At the $750-a-plate dinner, he introduced the main speaker, Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory, the man who will try to unseat McGuinty in next year's provincial election.

Harper called Tory "the next premier of Ontario" and declared: "Ontario needs John Tory because a strong Canada needs a strong Ontario and because John Tory is a nation builder."

McGuinty almost seemed to be practicing his campaign lines yesterday in the Legislature, as the Conservatives continued to badger him over his failure to "build bridges" with Ottawa and other provinces on the fiscal imbalance issue.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146779412061&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

So he is king.

He got rid of King Ralph. Now he will get rid of McGuinty.

Except that there is a bit of a difference. King Ralph always was picking a fight with the bad guys in Ottawa and won.

Quebec lives on opposing Ottawa.

Recently Ontario stood up and said we are tired of carrying everything for the benefit of Canada. So now presumably Ontario will join Quebec and Alberta for standing up for their provence. Well it won't be long before the Maritimes takes the same stand. (Funny thing the PM has been spending quite a bit of our money down there campaigning.)

So what happens now with Quebec, if their government is at odds with Ontario? Can Chariest expect much help there?

[glarius]

3. On Mike Duffy's show this was played as McGuinty being hard to get along

with and trying to pick a fight with Harper. Not only puffy piggy Duffy but Robert Fife and another "journalist" were painting a picture of McGuinty as looking for things to find fault with. I just can't bear to look at the smug face of that snake Harper, but I'm afraid CTV is going to convince enough people who don't follow politics as closely as the people on here do, that Harper is really a good guy.
By the way...aren't Harper's tactics and behaviour more and more like his hero George Bush?....Also, remember how Mulroney courted Quebec too and look how that all turned out.

[Bragi]

6. "Look how that all turned out"

Turns out the PCs governed with a majority for two terms, if I recall correctly. They didn't three-peat though, which is how Chretien came into office.

- B

[Spazito]

7. You left out the part where the Progressive Conservative Party

was wiped out as a consequence. That, too, needs to be included in your post, imo.