Lifestyles of the rich . . . and the un-Canadian

[tuvor]

AFTER A DECIMA POLL showed that the Liberals, without even having a permanent leader, had pulled ahead of the Conservatives in Quebec and Ontario, Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided it was time to slag Michael Ignatieff, the front-runner in the Liberal leadership race. He didn’t name Ignatieff but he was addressing Tory MPs, and they all knew who his target was.

"I understand that not everyone is lucky enough to be born into a rich family, to attend private schools, or to live an international lifestyle," he said. "Instead, millions upon millions get up each morning and get ahead the Canadian way, by working hard, by saving a bit of money, by doing the best they can to make the right decisions for their families and themselves. These people are our people."

Diplomat George Ignatieff was rich enough to send his boy Michael to Upper Canada College in Toronto, and the lad blossomed into an academic of such distinction he taught at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, the University of California, the University of London, and the London School of Economics. As a BBC television host, journalist, historian, novelist, biographer, memoir-writer, philosopher, and author of 16 books, Michael was so un-Canadian and un-Conservative as "to live an international lifestyle."

Some might be foolish enough to think that your having shone at six of the greatest universities in the world, and excelled overseas as an author and commentator on politics doesn’t mean you’re unfit to be a prime minister, but Harper knows better. Like any right-wing Republican, he can tell you how odious those elitist Liberals are, and how out of touch with the people.

I suspect he’s been studying American writer Geoffrey Nunberg’s best-seller, Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotian/521744.html

[MrPrax]

1. Works for Me

I can do redneck too...

"When you spend as much time as Iggy in school, most people figure you got put back" (rim-shot)

"The only time Iggy would use a punch clock, is in a sentence" (rim-shot)

"Let Iggy worry about whether the school has ivory and marble, we'll worry that they have teachers" (rim-shot)


Why let that cheap punk Harper steal our schtick? :shrug:

(where's Tommy when you need him...Douglas would have kicked the snot out of Steve and Iggy)

[Canuck55]

2. His wealth and upbringing are hardly a concern...

...so much as this horseshit:

Quotable quote: "To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war. These are evils because each strays from national and international law and because they kill people or deprive them of freedom without due process. They can be justified only because they prevent the greater evil. The question is not whether we should be trafficking in lesser evils but whether we can keep lesser evils under the control of free institutions." Mr. Ignatieff, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2004.

[SixStrings]

3. ...and you will hear nothing but crickets chirping...

I've posted this quote before about this 'wolf in sheeps clothing' - it's a thread killer. I mean, after all he is a 'Liberal' - how can he be anything but Canada's rightful leader???

It's funny, you get the same cheerleaders in this group who will bring up Steven Harper's quotes from 10 yrs ago, but this one apparently isn't as shocking.

Can't. understand. it.

[MrPrax]

5. Are you saying Liberals

are a pack of hypocrites who believe in nothing outside what their leader and the media tells them?

Are you saying that Liberals change their opinions as often as people change their underwear?

You mean phoney shit like complaining about Emerson, but cheering on Dosjani, Rae, Stronach, Brison, etc.

If by Liberal to you mean that group that would wear your ear off about Kyoto and even get a clown like Mercer to run publicly paid for ads 'catapulting' the issue, ONLY to eliminate the mere MENTION of the word kyoto today?

You mean Liberals like Linda McQuaig --who speaks truth to power -- only if the Tories are in government, but manages to let an entire decade pass without 'investigating' Liberal corruption?

You mean good liberals like Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, who for decades have crafted Liberal Party of Canada policy, only to jetison that support when Israel engages in a viscious illegal attack to back 'scary Harper'?

Perish the thought...

[Canuck55]

7. masterful snark

-nt-

[Canuck55]

6. Not sure there,

I haven't seen anything along those lines really. Is your complaint over the 'Liberals are the usual party in charge' or about Ignatieff's leadership bid itself?

I'm not talking party lines here, i'm talking batshit crazy who somehow taught at Ivy League schools. His position is that the ends justify the means, and just ignore those quaint little rules of law over there. No fucking thank you, reagardless of party. Rove is probably down there wetting himself with the options, Harper who is in love with Bush, or Iggy who probably gives Cheney, Gonzales and Addington wood in how compatible they all are.

[daleo]

8. I don't like the quote either

And Ignatieff is well down on my list of preferred prime ministers. He seems too Blair-like for me, although I have read and appreciated several of his books, and seen some of his TV stuff back in the late 80's.

[Spazito]

4. Of all the Lib leadership candidates, Mr. Ignatieff is the worst of

the bunch but it is not because of his wealth or "privileged upbringing", I couldn't care less about that, I just don't feel he is much different than Martin and Martin was a failure, imo.