It’s the right decision, and was apparently only made in past 48 hours or so. Good for him.
It now creates pressure on Justin Trudeau it will be impossible for the Montreal Liberal MP to ignore. If he doesn’t run, the party’s over, in more ways than one.
More than 150 Nearly 200 comments on the column, below, about the possibility of a Justin Trudeau candidacy. (And nearly 200 over at the Sun site.) There are many, many Liberal commentators passionately debating the idea, most of them in favour.
More interesting, however, is the number of Conservatives frantically attacking Trudeau and trying to convince Grits not to select him as leader. They almost sound panicked.
Like I say: interesting.
Son: Daddy?
Me: Yes, buddy?
Son: What is a fax?
Me: [Long, shocked pause.] Seriously?
Son: Yes, what is it?
Me: Wow. Well, um, it’s an old thing, I guess. Sending papers through phone lines. Like an email, but with paper. We did it in the old days.
Son: Okay, thanks.
Coyne attempts to style his column today as a cautionary tale about social media, and about how, you know, he was the one who taught the lesson.
That’s a lot of hooey, however. Coyne didn’t teach anyone any lesson. He and others who should know better – Wells (“mail a severed foot”), McLeod (retweeting Jun Lin jokes), Wicary (defending Coyne’s tactic), et al. – mocked a young man who died a horrible death, and they were indifferent to the suffering of his family. They looked like complete jerks as a result. They didn’t teach a lesson to anyone, in my opinion. But they’ll never admit that, of course.
Thus, again, the tweet below. Anyone feel, anywhere, that Coyne et al. did anything other than make themselves look bad, on the very day that Vancouver schools received dismembered limbs in the mail?
Just heard a story about insurance this morning on CBC. Reminded me of time the erstwhile OTLA president said “my boy” McGuinty was going to lose the election.
Good luck with that lobby, folks!
How serious is a Justin Trudeau candidacy for Liberal Party leader?
Serious enough that the smearmongers are now frantically trying to stop his momentum. Serious enough that nasty rumours and scurrilous allegations are now being circulated in some Grit circles — anonymously, natch — to try to persuade the Montreal Liberal MP to stay out of the coming contest.
It’s hard to say if the smears will ever see the light of day. But in the Internet age — when a lie can travel around the world 10 times before its target is even out of bed — anything is possible.
It’s disgusting, of course. It’s dumb, it’s despicable. It’s also bad strategy. Only now emerging from the political burn unit in the “Vikileaks” affair, you’d think Liberal apparatchiks would have learned their lesson about trading in this sort of garbage.
There, some Grits (including one in interim leader Bob Rae’s office) were found to have been behind a covert effort to publicize details about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ divorce. That muckraking backfired on them badly, and resulted in an angry Rae firing the fall guy in the affair, and apologizing to Toews on the floor of the House of Commons.
Now, there’s a reason for all of this unpleasantness, of course. It’s because, if Trudeau runs, Trudeau will win. Hands down.
There have been some polls strongly suggesting that only Justin Trudeau can lift Grits out of the ignominy of rump status in the House of Commons. An Ipsos poll conducted in the past week found 35% of Canadians have a positive impression of the 40-year-old son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
That’s double what Rae received in the same poll, and far, far ahead of any other contender for the top Lib job.
Von Daniken, with a pipe given to him by an ancient astronaut.
Oh my God (pun intended), I was totally into this dude when I was a teenager. I thought Chariots of the Gods was more reliable than most of my text books, which succinctly explains many of the marks I got.
Anyone else remember him? He hasn’t died or anything (and, even if he did, it would be only to be transformed into a space ancestor at Stonehenge or Easter Island). His theories are on view, partly, in Ridley Scott’s new flick, Prometheus. Personally, I think he’s awesome.
Anyone else have a von Daniken-inspired revelation to pass along? Be kind. When crop circles and giant rust-free phalluses start appearing on your front lawn, you’ll regret being critical of this god-like genius.