Jaundiced Eyes

Personally, I don't think there is much that's particularly noteworthy or insightful to take from Jane Krieber's jaundiced commentary. I notice others, with their own agendas, are seizing on her comments, as though some enlightened prophecy. Please. I understand why Krieber's words are being used to support various biases, but the CONVENIENT lack of context renders the validity meaningless.

Here's a novel idea. Maybe if your husband could have produced a video that didn't make an amateur You Tube presentation look like a relative IMAX, the coalition might have got off the ground. Maybe if the horrendous visual was delivered on TIME, as a nation waited to hear from the next PM, the coalition might have had a chance. MAYBE, if your husband didn't lead the Liberals to the worst defeat in it's history, the idea of a coalition might have generated the CREDIBILITY it needed to FLY. I have one word for the poetic musing from Krieber, WHINY.

Liberals are basically ignoring this story, and really its predictive quality, as well as the useless bitterness, validates any silence. However, it's the revisionism that is being bastardized by others, that deserves comment. Stephane Dion did JACK SQUAT to reform and rebuild the Liberal Party. Only after we were soundly defeated, did the idea even reach the backburner. I know for a fact, many that went to Dion at the convention, seeing him as a vehicle for reform, were ENTIRELY DISAPPOINTED, Dion was OLD SCHOOL to the bone. Let's call a spade a spade shall we, without the romanticized rearview mirror routine.

The Liberal Party is in great trouble. Wow, that's news. The only part missing, it was a relatively worse DISASTER when your husband had the helm. Leaving aside an IPSOS REID poll, any other INTERNAL measure shows the Liberals in better shape than they were under Ignatieff's predessor. Membership, fundraising, organization, strength of team, all the nuts an bolts are a positive, contrasted with the PAST. Let's keep it real, all factors taken into account.

On the "grassroots" front, seems to me the only reason Stephane finished third on the first ballot, was because he enjoyed more support from the ELITES than Kennedy did. Yes, that's right, for all this grassroot crap being bandied about, it was superdelegates that put Dion into motion, and it was the loyalty Kennedy enjoyed from HIS delegates, which put it all together. This grassroots stuff has reached mythical proportions, when in reality my view of the rank and file was always UNEASE overall, with Dion at the helm. As an aside, one could argue the Liberal Party had no TRUE grassroots in 2006, in any sense of the word.

In many ways Stephane Dion got a raw deal. I think he would have made a fantastic Prime Minister, and Canada is the lesser that he lost to Harper. HOWEVER, the fact remains that Dion didn't RESONATE, not only with Canadians, but with Liberal members (the supposed grassroots Kreiber champions). For whatever reason, his approach didn't instill confidence, his paranoid team that kept everyone at bay, his stubborness, these factors all contributed to his short tenure. If the confidence did exist amongst the rank and file, and NO not just the elites, then he could have survived the WORST showing in history. Dion didn't, and for ONCE I'd like to see somebody take some responsibility, rather than blaming shadows. Dion blew it during the coalition debate, I've never been so EMBARRASSED than I was, waiting for the clowns to deliver that horrific tape. It was so symbolic of so many things, that SHIT never happens to a credible team and leader, for such a momentus event.

Jane Kreiber is bitter. I'm so shocked. There are many lessons the Liberals need to learn, but the advice from the disjointed loyal wife of a former leader, isn't something I take seriously or inject my own bias onto. Whatever, given the source.