Michael Ignatieff, the hastily-acclaimed-without-a-vote new Liberal Leader, clenches a fist. He's reportedly dictating to the Liberal Party that they're forbidden to speak without his permission, that they'll say only what he allows them to say. Remember how the mainstream media made a big stink over accusations that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was allegedly "muzzling" his MPs? Will they let Czar Igor get away with doing it, perpetuating the double standard that Liberals can get away with what the MSM won't let Conservatives get away with? Or will the MSM just shut up about Harper's alleged "muzzling" of his MPs, as they don't want to have to attack the exalted Liberal bigwig, too?Looks like Michael Ignatieff is a bully who won't let Liberals speak for themselves.
New Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told his troops there will be no freelancing; the Liberal Party will now speak with one voice and it will be his, according to an insider.
Funny how Liberals have called Harper a bully and a muzzler for exercising discipline with his own people. Will the Liberals now hypocritically submit and kiss Czar Igor's skinny Russian-royalty ass?
Anyway, here's some insight for your consideration as to what kind of man Ignatieff is:
"Failed intellectual"
Mr. Ignatieff came meekly to the war party in 2003, and all but abandoned it last year. It was his one tough position, so far as I could see. This caution makes him a plausible politician, but a failed intellectual. His excuse has been the desire to avoid ideology; but a "public intellectual" should pursue the truth, ruthlessly.
No one has ever accused Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper of being a "failed intellectual". He has demonstrated his ability to balance hard intellect with political acumen, strategic orientation and electoral combat skill.
Ignatieff? Big, fat question mark. Is Ignatieff a washed-up ivory-tower professor looking for something different to do, something to quench his hereditary lust for absolute power, himself being a descendant of elitist Russian royalty, something which may well have gone to his head, causing it to swell? Already he's an arrogant, dictatorial leader without democratic consent, even from his own people!
"Ruthless", "unsentimental" in private life as well as in politics
The "ruthless" side of Mr. Ignatieff -- he has long had a fascination with that word -- has been manifested instead in his private life, as Michael Valpy and others have documented. His dealings with friends and family have often been unsentimental, and his manoeuvrings for the Liberal leadership have tended to confirm that he lacks nothing in that aspect of political efficiency.
Will the MSM let Ignatieff off the hook for being ruthless and unsentimental, dictatorial and bullying, whereas they bash Harper at every opportunity for any hint of that sort of thing? Or will they have to bash both or stop bashing Harper so they won't look biased? Or will they continue to be unfair towards Harper and partisanly biased in Ignatieff's favor?
Hmm... Ignatieff sounds like a bully, a Machiavellian, in the tradition of the ruthless S.O.B. Trudeau and mercilessly vindictive Chretien, whose nastiness is the stuff of which frightening, beer-infused bonfire stories are made.
ht: National Newswatch
