By Andrew Potter, The Ottawa CitizenJune 22, 2009
Parliament broke for summer last Friday, which means Canadians will have to wait till fall for their annual federal election. Our MPs are due back in Ottawa at the end of September -- three months, then, for everyone to do some constituency work, reintroduce themselves to their families, and maybe even relax by a lake somewhere.
And in the case of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, it is a chance to use his much-ballyhooed brain for the first time in ages. He might want to use it to do some hard thinking about whether he really wants to be in Canadian politics after all.
Everyone agrees that Ignatieff had a lousy last couple of weeks. First, he took an entire weekend to figure out how he felt about the government's latest accountability report, then promptly laid out four ridiculous "conditions" for supporting an upcoming supply motion. He tried to play chicken with the government, and Stephen Harper plucked him bald. The Liberals have now lost virtually all of the momentum they had built up since Ignatieff took over as leader, and as some wag had it, he's gone from being "lionized" to "Dionized." Oof.
Writing in the National Post, L. Ian Macdonald commented that Ignatieff's political reputation had been permanently damaged by his performance last week. Except, it isn't clear that his political reputation is what Ignatieff should be concerned about. More pressingly, he should be worried about the long-term damage this ongoing adventure in Canadian politics is doing to his reputation as a serious thinker.
Five years ago Michael Ignatieff was happily ensconced at Harvard where he was director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The centre is itself a part of the Kennedy School of Government, which is a sort of staging ground for Democratic political operators and policy wonks as they cycle in and out of government. As the legend is told, he was paid a visit by Ian Davey (son of Keith) along with a couple other Liberal lawyers, and they put a bug in Ignatieff's ear about coming home, standing for Parliament, and maybe becoming leader and running the country.
And back he promptly came, riding a tremendous cloud of puffed-up excitement. Brainy! Handsome! Trudeau! That excitement lasted right up until he won a seat in the Commons, at which point the good professor found himself mouthing the same banalities, fatuities, and schoolyard taunts that pass for wit in our Parliament. Things have only got worse since he took over as Liberal leader, since now he not only has to support a raft of idiotic ideas, statements and policies, he has to pretend that they are his.
That could be considered just a steep cover charge for admission to the club, if the club allowed him to actually play to his strengths from time to time. But when you consider the substantive issues -- the war in Afghanistan, the Quebec question, torture and rendition -- nobody has the foggiest idea what Ignatieff's views are. His whole brand is built around the proposition that he's a world expert on human rights, nationalism, and the perils and prospects of liberal interventionism, but whenever someone asks him his opinion on a specific case, Ignatieff slips and slides like the greasiest city hall politico.
The truth is that Michael Ignatieff's status within the more hardcore precincts of the academy is not that high. He's considered an elegant writer and a competent popularizer, but he's also seen as a bit of a dilettante who lacks rigour and who tends to agree with the last book he read on a topic. But that's fine: it is no small thing to be an internationally respected public intellectual, even if the emphasis is on the "public."
Parliament broke for summer last Friday, which means Canadians will have to wait till fall for their annual federal election. Our MPs are due back in Ottawa at the end of September -- three months, then, for everyone to do some constituency work, reintroduce themselves to their families, and maybe even relax by a lake somewhere.
And in the case of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, it is a chance to use his much-ballyhooed brain for the first time in ages. He might want to use it to do some hard thinking about whether he really wants to be in Canadian politics after all.
Everyone agrees that Ignatieff had a lousy last couple of weeks. First, he took an entire weekend to figure out how he felt about the government's latest accountability report, then promptly laid out four ridiculous "conditions" for supporting an upcoming supply motion. He tried to play chicken with the government, and Stephen Harper plucked him bald. The Liberals have now lost virtually all of the momentum they had built up since Ignatieff took over as leader, and as some wag had it, he's gone from being "lionized" to "Dionized." Oof.
Writing in the National Post, L. Ian Macdonald commented that Ignatieff's political reputation had been permanently damaged by his performance last week. Except, it isn't clear that his political reputation is what Ignatieff should be concerned about. More pressingly, he should be worried about the long-term damage this ongoing adventure in Canadian politics is doing to his reputation as a serious thinker.
Five years ago Michael Ignatieff was happily ensconced at Harvard where he was director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The centre is itself a part of the Kennedy School of Government, which is a sort of staging ground for Democratic political operators and policy wonks as they cycle in and out of government. As the legend is told, he was paid a visit by Ian Davey (son of Keith) along with a couple other Liberal lawyers, and they put a bug in Ignatieff's ear about coming home, standing for Parliament, and maybe becoming leader and running the country.
And back he promptly came, riding a tremendous cloud of puffed-up excitement. Brainy! Handsome! Trudeau! That excitement lasted right up until he won a seat in the Commons, at which point the good professor found himself mouthing the same banalities, fatuities, and schoolyard taunts that pass for wit in our Parliament. Things have only got worse since he took over as Liberal leader, since now he not only has to support a raft of idiotic ideas, statements and policies, he has to pretend that they are his.
That could be considered just a steep cover charge for admission to the club, if the club allowed him to actually play to his strengths from time to time. But when you consider the substantive issues -- the war in Afghanistan, the Quebec question, torture and rendition -- nobody has the foggiest idea what Ignatieff's views are. His whole brand is built around the proposition that he's a world expert on human rights, nationalism, and the perils and prospects of liberal interventionism, but whenever someone asks him his opinion on a specific case, Ignatieff slips and slides like the greasiest city hall politico.
The truth is that Michael Ignatieff's status within the more hardcore precincts of the academy is not that high. He's considered an elegant writer and a competent popularizer, but he's also seen as a bit of a dilettante who lacks rigour and who tends to agree with the last book he read on a topic. But that's fine: it is no small thing to be an internationally respected public intellectual, even if the emphasis is on the "public."
