Stephen "Janus" Harper Speaks

Talk about speaking out of both sides your face. Harper in today's interview on CBC opens his mouth and proves that he's the most two-faced politician walking Canada's soil today.

On one hand, he tries to sound oh-so-reasonable:

Until then, Harper repeated his invitation to the opposition parties to offer specific suggestions for managing the economy.

"We have a right to that input. Some of the opposition parties are saying they want to run the government. That's fine. Precisely what is it you want to do?" Harper asked.

Then he turns around and makes amazingly partisan accusations against the opposition parties:

Harper suggested Tuesday that the coalition had little to do with frustrations over his approach to the economy, but was in fact a conspiracy on the part of opposition parties to bring down the recently elected Conservatives.

"I think, frankly, after the election — if not before the election — the opposition parties decided that they would work against the government as an essentially unified front," Harper said.

He went on to accuse NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe of backing the Liberal party into a corner where it was forced to either vote against the government or be "condemned as sellouts."

I don't know about you, but there's a gaping lack of responsibility here. Harper knows damned good and well that he is responsible for the actions of his party in crafting the FU of two weeks ago. His government not only failed to put forth any sense of clarity of action to address the economic situation, but he - and yes, I believe Harper himself is culpable - placed a couple of resolutions into the mix which none of the opposition parties could or would ever accept.

The other thing that's just plain wrong here is the "tell us what you would do", followed by still more partisan sniping. Let me be excessively explicit about this - you do not get cooperation from people by kicking them in the shins at every opportunity.

What a patently two-faced man.