Rex Murphy: We All Know You Are A Tory Hack ...

... now just shut up about it and let the grownups talk, please.

Talk about pathetic.  In a previous column, Murphy was emphatic about how he speaks to his own beliefs and none other.  While one might almost believe that, when Murphy's "own beliefs" sound suspiciously like talking points out of the PMO, Murphy's audience needs to get a little more suspicious.

Generally speaking, the idea of political parties blending forces, making deals with one another during elections, is not a sound one. Political parties have identities, and those identities emerge from their policies and history — and from their differences with other parties.

Hmmm...I've seen this before ... back in 2011 as I recall.  It was drivel back then, and it's drivel now.  Mr. Murphy needs to look around the world a bit more - you know to countries which have routinely had coalition governments for years.  One might, for example, point to Israel whose electoral system more or less ensures that there will never be a majority government.  I don't believe that any of the parties in the Israeli system have "lost their identity" as a result of participating in a coalition, although to be sure, the parties who get pulled into coalitions find themselves living out the old adage about "politics makes for strange bedfellows".

Such deals are, of course, the enduring dreams of parties without a hope. For example, Elizabeth May’s Green party has often nursed the hope of some “strategic” co-operation with the Liberals.  

Ah yes, let's drag out the absolutist language of winners and losers.  How very partisan of you Mr. Murphy.  Canadians are supposed to disregard the reality that we elect our representatives and send them to Ottawa to form a functional government - whether that is a majority, minority or coalition is really quite irrelevant.

We all remember the ructions from the last time a coalition was sprung on the public.  It was a mere six years ago, after the 2008 election.  A "coalition of losers" ... There was a horrified recoil from the idea, which offended mathematicians and Hansard devotees in equal numbers....Naturally the thinking part of the nation was outraged.  It had all the odour of an insider's deal and, as it turned out, Mr. Layton had gamed it before the elections and was later heard to brag about his tactical prescience.  Despite the backlash over the idea they pressed on.  The very power of the idea of foiling Stephen Harper was so string in those partisan hearts, they could not resist attempt to finesse an election they simply had not won. 

Wow.  Talk about repeating the talking points, Rex.  People who actually understand how our parliamentary democracy is supposed to work were not outraged at all.  In fact, the real outrage was that our graceless Prime Minister of the day had the audacity to claim that a coalition was somehow "undemocratic" - in spite of the fact that the opposition parties in fact represented a greater percentage of the Canadian electorate than did the governing Conservative Party.

The claim that a coalition is somehow "undemocratic" is absolute nonsense.  That's language the Harperites reserve for when they aren't at the head of the proposed coalition, as Harper demonstrated in 2004.

Mr. Murphy, if you truly believe the nonsense you are spouting, at least respect Canadians enough to not so obviously parrot the talking points that the PMO is handing out.  If you are just being a shill for the CPC, kindly do all of us the favour of announcing that you are going to run as Stephen Harper's lead fluffer in the next election - that way we'll all know exactly where you stand.