Harper The Micromanager: The Cracks Start To Show

I've said for a long time that Harper is a micromanager, and that's very bad news for both his party and Canada.

Well, as is inevitable, some Conservatives are starting to get it.

“When you take everything on on your own, how can you possibly – no matter how brilliant you may be – know the sensitivities of a file?” a senior Tory asked. “You're bound to make mistakes when you don't have the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, second-to-second knowledge.”

All I can say here is "well duh"! But then again, I've known that for a long time - from rather personal experience. Harper finds himself in the midst of a leadership pressure cooker, and his style will simply degrade over the coming months as the issues he cannot manage outweigh the issues that he is trying to manage.

Capturing the whole picture quite nicely, the Globe and Mail quotes from The Strategic Counsel:

“It the old smartest guy in the room syndrome,” said Mr. Gregg, chair of The Strategic Counsel. “He handles all the issues because he believes he's better at it and he may be right 90 per cent of the time — but the 10 per cent when he isn't, he ends up wearing it.”

Basically, at this point in time, we (Canadians) have three paths open to us:

1) Harper wakes up and backs off. This is highly unlikely, because the micromanager is often so convinced of their own convictions and the "rightness" of their actions that they won't consider options. One might argue that allowing Baird to unveil the CPoC environment policy is a sign of this happening, but Harper doesn't believe the environment is important, so he's willing to let a minion run with it as long as they don't become a liability.

2) Harper continues to mire Canada and her government in the morass of micromanaged stupidity where his priorities get the stage, and the real priorities get sidelined to the detriment of the nation. (Harper's already doing quite a bit of damage to Canada - our reputation on the world stage is rapidly turning into that of "Bush's Toadie", and a country who doesn't stand behind its commitments.

3) The opposition wakes up, brings this turd of a government down, and we vote in something else. (Believe me, anything is going to be better for Canada as long as it isn't run by a micromanager)