Okay, Harper's made what appears to be a moderate cabinet. (Moderate is a relative term - compared to handing things over to say - Art Hanger - it's moderate)
But, then I got to thinking about the appointment of Jason Kenney as "Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister", and I found myself wondering just how many other "Parliamentary Secretaries" Mr. Harper has appointed. We know of at least one other - Diane Ablonczy, but there could be quite a few more that simply haven't made the news.
Being the trusting soul that I am, and being cursed with a memory for past events and behaviour, I wonder if Mr. Kenney's appointment isn't a "lead position in the real cabinet. In other words, what's been staged yesterday was the "public face" of the party. Hat tips went to former leaders; long-time, personally popular MPs (e.g. Monte Solberg) and an effort was made to make the cabinet look like it was drawn from across the country.
Lurking behind that facade may be something quite different - not unlike the proverbial "Wizard of Oz", where the "face" of the wizard turns out to be little more than a bit of puppetry. Although I suspect in this case something far less benign.
In watching some of Harper's speeches yesterday, I was left with a distinctly uneasy feeling. His words were conciliatory, but his body language and verbal tone struck me as borderline confrontational. Disjoins like that tend to reinforce my feeling that there is more going on "just below the surface" than has been revealed to date.
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Harper hubris, or Does Harper have a tin ear?
The conventional wisdom now seems to be that Stephen Harper is a political genius, of the same ilk as Napoleon, or Churchill, or – pick your favourite. But what if Harper’s cabinet-making is not a politically astute move by at all, but simply a sign that he has a political tin ear?
After all, sometimes the past is predicator of the future: in 2004 he misread the electorate with some of his comments about the Liberals – especially Martin – and his premature triumph speeches about the West taking over. And in Parliament he has sounded a bit screechy and overly self-righteous. Then there are those stories about him being a one-man-band, who does not need a mentor because, one observer says he said, he never met anyone as smart as he is ....
So, perhaps this was just Harper being Harper, and marching to his own discordant band?
If so, wait until the second Act: gonna be a lot of fun for Libs and NDP, and a lot of buyer’s remorse by many voters in Ontario ....
And meanwhile, the Bloc will crouch in the wings, nursing its wounds, and waiting for the right time to take Harper down – when he is under a cloud of intolerance or stupidity, but before he cements himself into Quebec as Mulroney Junior. Best get rid of him soon, before he becomes a real threat to the Bloc ...
So wait for the right moment, and the ganging up by the three parties who each have good reasons for taking him out of his new digs at Sussex, and who – between them – hold the balance of power.
After all, Harper arranged a mob-lynching of Martin with all three parties deciding to put in the knife on that particular Ides of May. Having shown the way, I wonder if Harper fears that this time the other three parties will cooperate to bring him down?
Better than even chance, I think; and probably before summer ends, too.....
Maybe Harper should let those renovations take place at Sussex Drive before he moves in: might save him having to move twice, eh?
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