chapter 53: r.i.p. stephane dion 2006 - 2008; or, how we learned that stephen harper was right

it turned out stephen harper was right about stephane dion. he's not capable of leading a government. pardon me for a moment, while i try to keep my lunch down.

but really, dion has shown time and time again he isn't capable of doing simple things required of a politician, particularly in his dealings with the media.

and today, perhaps recognizing his credibility as leader is shot, he stepped down. and for the centre-left movement in canada, which still comprises a majority of the country by the way, it comes not a moment too soon.

first, there was the infamous restart debacle. just as every prime minister has to be able to speak french, every prime minister must speak english too. but dion, as intelligent as he may be, clearly isn't up to that task. watch as he asks a reporter to restart an interview three times because he doesn't understand a pretty simple question:



then, when he was given a time to respond to stephen harper on the coalition government issue, he and his team delivered a poor quality taped message late. it was out of focus, it was poorly framed, and awkward to watch. this is what discomfort looks like:



dion has proven himself a good politician with good ideas in the past. but if his team can't be trusted with simple tasks, how can we trust him to do the right things for the country during a challenging time?

chapter 46: second verse, same as the first

after five weeks of being messaged to death, watching the parties squabble over bird poop and other meaningless tripe, the 2008 federal election gave us...pretty much the same dysfunctional parliament we had before.


yes, all this for the low-low price of 300 million dollars!


the third election in four years, totalling nearly a billion dollars. wouldn't that money have been better spent giving more money to our fat cat bankers, so they can keep the windfall for themselves like they always do?


despite being chosen by canadians as the best leader of a bad lot, a would-be warm and cuddly stephen harper still couldn't manage to convince canadians to give him the keys to the castle, though he did come pretty close.


that big sucking sound you heard? stephane dion's liberals doing the down stroke on their way to the party's worst showing ever. i'll say it again: worst. showing. ever.


about the only thing drowning out the liberal suckfest was the collective yawn that could be heard coast to cast, as only 59% of elegibile voters bothered to show up at the polls, a record low.


when asked to explain the landslide victory for apathy, disengaged voters said...oh, who am i kidding...who cares?