Question: Will you run as MP in Etobicoke-Lakeshore if you lose the leadership race?
Possible - simple - answers could have been "No", "I don't know", "Let's see".
What does Michael Ignatieff say?
"I'd like to serve my constituents well, but you're asking me an anticipatory hypothetical about the situation that prevails on the 3rd or 4th of December."
[The Star]
Tags: Michael Ignatieff Canada Liberal Party
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6 comments:
Ah, why isn't Linda Diebel asking other candidates this question? Her bias has been consistent throughout this campaign.
It's a "stupid" question. Sure he'll have to rethink - anyone who loses will have to rethink their future. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
You don't know what might have been proposed to him if he lost do you?
Face it, Diebel is pushing for her Kennedy.
I for one, think she should be taken off the reporting of this campaign as she can't keep her bias to herself.
Talk about bias. Never mind Diebel, what about yourself? In straining to make your comparison to Kerry’s sometimes ponderous equivocations, you conveniently left out the following responses to the Star’s editorial board:
"Depends who's leader," Ignatieff said yesterday…
"No. It really is that I have to look what I am looking at," he said.
Said Ignatieff: "No, I won't go there. It really is a hypothetical. "
Those all sound to me like fair responses to a rather silly question.
But no, you elected to simply highlight the one that supported your characterization of Ignatieff as an obtuse waffler.
Shame on you Mezba!
I am just highlighting a fear that Ignatieff will be perceived that way. Everyone I talk to, even some Mi supporters, secretly admits that. What Mi needs is to talk more bluntly, show he is connecting with the 'normal people'. I would never use words like that in a normal sentance.
Wow. Tough crowd in the house.
First of all, I think your expectations are a bit unrealistic. You want a potential leadership candidate to come out and plainly state what his position would be should he lose (thereby admitting he’s considered what his strategy would be should he be defeated) AND you want him to commit to whether he would continue on in the party should one of the other nine candidates be elected (even though he may vehemently disagree with that person’s opinions… depending on who it is, which he doesn’t know). Yeah, to me, that’s a pretty silly question. A typical media question, but still silly. Basically, it’s unanswerable and I thought Ignatieff handled it well.
Mezba, you may be “highlighting a fear that Ignatieff will be perceived that way” –- i.e., as the next Kerry, but in propagating this meme, you’re hardly helping matters. In fact, I would suggest that you’re being rather disingenuous in this regard. If you really feel this way, then just say it, but don’t hide behind the old “well, I’m just saying OTHER people might look at it this way” routine. That’s like the “I have a friend who has this problem…” bit.
Uzurper has a totally false dichotomy going on here. Of course he’s focused on the top job. Don’t conflate that with commitment to the party should he not win the top spot and decide not to run again. The article actually goes to great pains stressing that one can be a committed Liberal without being an elected MP, let alone the leader of the party. Are YOU and MP? Are YOU the leader? Are YOU a committed Liberal? If you answered no to the first two and yes to the last question, I rest my case.
Redmapleaf just offers up a few opinionated farts with a hockey analogy thrown in for good measure. I’d like to know, on what planet is politics a “team sport”? Silly me, I always thought it was a conniving, grasping, muckraking, grubby sort of affair even at the intra-party level. If it was a hockey game, we wouldn't have 10 players on the ice!
Red, I don't know if Ignatieff is Kerry yet, but I feel he is certainly heading that way. I DO think he is politically naive. Which is not surprising considering he has not been in politics in Canada for some time. His statements such as 'not losing any sleep over civilian deaths' and now this, as well as some others I can't recall now do point to this fact. I may not like Harper or his policies but I have grudging respect for their political machinery. On the campaign trail I think (and it is my opinion only) that they will roast Mi.
I guess the biggest thing that bugs me about him is that he has been out of the country for 30 years and now he comes back and assumes he can lead us and tell us what to do. You may think I am wrong and point to 'well what's wrong with staying out of Canada' etc. but I don't think he should be our leader. Again, my view.
Look, Ignatieff is not Kerry and nor will he be. It’s as plain as that. You can draw this comparison all you want, as others have already done, and while there may be some similarities, the two men are quite different political animals as far as I’m concerned.
You have still not addressed my original objection which was the selective poaching of one quote out of that Toronto Star article that framed things from your perspective. Ignatieff is actually quite plain-spoken in most respects. As for his political naivety, well this is just an imaginary confection of his critics. Is Kennedy a “shrewd operator” or Dion a “crafty pol”? And if they were, would that somehow make things better for you? Another imaginary claim you make is that Ignatieff with be roasted on the campaign trail. And this would be based on what, exactly?
Ah, but here we come to the real seat of the problem, “I guess the biggest thing that bugs me about him is that he has been out of the country for 30 years and now he comes back and assumes he can lead us and tell us what to do.” Yes. This is an issue for many folks it seems, but I have yet see it articulated in a way that doesn’t smack of a petulant, narrow-minded, parochial frame of reference.
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