The Conservatives and the Liberals reversal on this untidy democracy business has been so profound, in fact, you almost half-expect their MPs to all be wearing neck braces as they return to work this week. This is political whiplash on a grand scale, folks.

It’s also bizarre. There is nothing that Stephen Harper loves more than lobbing policy hand grenades at the Liberal caucus, and watching them dance. On gun control, on abortion, on almost any issue, Grit disunity makes Harper happier than a flea at a dog show.

So why, then, is he now giving the Grits a break?

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I hum ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ whilst Monte looks on, awestruck.

Clippage here, at about the 1:45 mark.

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I’ve been asked to go on a CBC panel, tonight, to discuss Tony Blair’s comments to Evan Solomon – to wit, that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are really just about a struggle within Islam, modernity vs. fundamentalist extremism, etc.

I’m no expert on that subject, but I do know from my Irish Catholic experience that if these conflicts are really about faith – and not oil, or treasure,  or power, or strategic position – then we are well and truly screwed for about, say, 1,000 years.  That’s usually how long these deity-driven things take to peter out (thus my preoccupation with the separation of church and state, BTW).

Evan interviewing Blair is here.

What thinkest thou, smart commenters?

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Fences. Great pop tune, and  a with you-won’t-forget-it chorus, too.  Don’t play it at work while your boss is hovering nearby.

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…and he’s right.  It will be.

A quick recap:

• The Conservative caucus is wholly in favour of keeping the war going in Afghanistan.  If given the chance, they’d all vote that way.
• The NDP and the Bloc are opposed, and want Parliament to stick by its resolution to get Canadian troops out by July 2011.  If given the chance, they’d all vote against continuing the war.
• The Liberals are split.  Their leader and their foreign affairs critic have inexplicably decided to side with the government, and said so without consulting with caucus.  Meanwhile, a majority of Grit partisans and an indeterminate number of MPs – if my inbox is any indication – seem to feel as the NDP and the Bloc do.
• Stephen Harper – who is most happy when Liberals are in disarray – never, ever misses a chance to embarrass them.  So why isn’t he embarrassing them?
• Well, it could be because Harper knows that if there’s a vote, he might lose it, and he’ll look plenty foolish in front of his NATO colleagues.
• Embarrass the Liberals, but lose the vote.  Or, avoid a vote, but in so doing, avoid international embarrassment.

Interesting, yes.  That’s accurate.

It would also be accurate to say it’s pathetic, too.

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I know they’re channeling Springsteen more than they should, and that they seem to be a bit more calculated than a rock’n’roll band should ever be, but…it’s the song. We’ve been listening to it for months – and tonight on the way back, too – and it seems to be from the heart. It does.

The words, too.  They reveal the kind of love of words that you don’t see many bands admit to, these days (or know how to, even if they wanted to).  So I put them below the video.

Look what you started.
I seem to be coming out of my skin.
Look what you’ve forgotten here,
The bandages just don’t keep me in.

And when it was over, I woke up alone.

And they cut me to ribbons and taught me to drive,
I got your name tattooed inside of my heart.
I called for my father, but my father had died.
While you told me fortunes, in American slang.

Look at the damage,
the fortunes came for the richer men.
While we’re left with gallows,
waiting for us liars to come down and hang.

And when it was over, I woke up alone.

And here’s where we died that time last year,
And here’s where the angels and devils meet.
And you can dance with the Queen if you need,
And she will always keep your cards
close to her heart.
So close to her heart, before they tear you apart.

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Something I have been suggesting to Liberals for a long time. Finally, someone has done it.

It’ll make for some excellent spots, too.

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He had that effect on voting-age citizens, too.

There he is, on Oprah, sort of suggesting he didn’t have the authority to send in the troops after Hurricane Katrina levelled New Orleans in 2005 – while, inexplicably, he had the “authority” to send in the same troops and invade Iraq two years earlier.

Or, there he is on another channel, telling Matt Lauer he has no regrets about permitting terror suspects to be waterboarded – which, the dictionaries remind us, is “a form of torture” wherein drowning is simulated.

“Damn right,” Dubya tells Lauer. He then goes on to say his feelings were “hurt” when Kanye West called him a racist for failing to help the predominantly black population of the aforementioned New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Got that?

Torture – “damn right,” it’s A-OK. Being called a racist by a musician a lot of people never listen to – that “hurts.”

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You know, I was busy with last night’s gig (and a big shout out to my buddy BCL, who came by to take in the show) and feeling sorry for myself for my Man Cold©, so I didn’t get a chance to fully reflect on the following:

1.  The Prime Minister said last Fall that our combat mission in Afghanistan would end, and would be “a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011.”

2.  The Liberal Party’s leader said this Spring that his party also favoured “a different role focusing on a humanitarian commitment” after 2011.

3. “Humanitarian.” They both used that word.

4.  After the Liberal leader abruptly changed his mind about all this “humanitarian” stuff, so did the Prime Minister.  Both of them now favour extending the war, and yet more combat roles for at least 1,000 troops.

5.  There’ll be no debate about any of this in Parliament, which is, you know, the Supreme Legislature of the People.  No one seems to give a shit about that.

6.  To drive in the final nail in democracy’s proverbial coffin, the Prime Minister emasculates his Minister of Defence, and sends out his press secretary to tell the rest of us that we’ll be at war for a few more years.  On political info-tainment shows.

7.  Got all that?  Whiplash-inducing reversals on all sides, open contempt for the legislature, cabinet ministers neutered in public, unelected hacks wielding the power of the executive.  Oh, and, more war.

8. More war.  Just like that, in the week where we are all supposed to be remembering why war is a bad thing.

9.  And political people actually wonder why both the Liberals and the Conservatives are dropping below 30 per cent in the polls, and why the NDP is moving up.  And they wonder why people are growing more and more cynical about democracy, and democratic institutions, and are angrily lashing out at politicians.

10.  Wonder no more.

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