How Does Klein Do It?

Ralph Klein has decreed that all potential replacements resign from cabinet by June. Couple this fact, with Klein's announcement that he will stay on until 2008 and you have a situation that betrays the public good. Albertan's now have a lame duck Premier, with bizarre priorities, as well as a government deprived of it's best and brightest.

Flashback to Jean Chretien's "long goodbye" and you will find the same people who reacted with contempt now strangely silent on King Ralph. It is simply staggering to watch the Klein "cult of personality" operate with impunity. In effect, there is now a two-year leadership campaign which will invariably distract the government, or what's left of the government. How are Albertan's served by this scenario? Clearly, Klein can do whatever he wants, with little accountability which reveals an inherent hypocrisy in Alberta. Oil revenues seem to mask the arrogance and sense of entitlement so often vilified in the federal realm.

On the surface, asking cabinet minister's to resign makes sense to avoid conflicts and jockeying. However, the timeframe betrays the "ideal", leaving the government in a perpetual holding pattern, that intensifies as the months pass. Klein has already made it clear he lacks any vision for the future, as evidenced by his lazy attitude in the last election. Now, Ralph can just sit on his throne, awash in revenue, while the people are largely silent and the peons fight to replace the annointed one. I don't get it, I didn't get when I lived out west- it's almost laughable. Everytime I raised a issue about Klein, I inevitably received the "oh that's just Ralph". A province of apologists(I'm generalizing of course), who offer no criticism so long as the checks come in and the coffers are full.