Mideast mess on PM's plate

[CHIMO]

Two positives and a negative flow from Stephen Harper's very personal role in Canada's Lebanon rescue.

For doing "the right thing," Harper is being rewarded with politically priceless news coverage of a Prime Minister bringing his people safely home. But he is now inseparable from an international crisis with divisive domestic implications.

Give the Prime Minister full marks for trying to clean up a mess that he didn't create but made worse with a careless comment. In diverting his Airbus 310 to Cyprus, Harper confronted a problem, finally signalled concern for Canadians trapped in Lebanon and made a difference for a few of the thousands touched by a conflict politicians simplify when they can't ignore.

That, and Harper's aye-we-stand-by-you Israeli policy, were easy to ignore until the Prime Minister took the danger to Canadians too lightly and then tried to make amends by airlifting some himself. Now Harper "owns" the Middle East issue, and a country that's learning to be wary of his foreign policy will be watching.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1153518610228&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

So now Quebec could have a policy that is different from the ROC. So now Stevie will have to go to Bush for help.

Guess what happens next with the apprentice.

[daleo]

1. The airplane thing was a photo-op, cynical in the extreme

I can't believe the way journalists pretend they don't understand that.

[daleo]

2. Harper's version of the Bushian buck-passing

"It's the Liberals fault", in place of "It's Clinton's fault."

If Clinton is the Clenis, then are the Liberals the Lenis? More likely, they would claim this is some nefarious result of the "sponsorship scandal".

On edit - posted that in the wrong place somehow. It should have been in the Harper blames Liberal ambassador story. Obviously the Lenis does have spooky powers.