Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s political campaign lacks presentation, texture, flavor, and seasoning – like a bad dinner in an over-priced restaurant. Not only does the campaign lack sizzle, it lacks steak, or, rather, anything appetizing; the “Green Shift” carbon tax meanwhile, in some areas like British Columbia., is indigestible, pure gristle.

The real problem here is Dion himself. Despite the personality deficit, something that Harper has as well (in fact the only time Harper does show personality it is his smile: a reptilian leer that is supposed to project warmth and approachability), Dion’s policies are flat and flavorless.

The more compelling Conservative star, Defense Minister Peter Mackay, chose to conduct a 45-minute interview with me where difficult questions were asked (good-naturedly), and where the rising-in-the-polls NDP leader Jack Layton also chose to visit the program — twice (once in studio). During this election, Dion, the man with both an image and communication problem, the man who needs to connect, with seats to win or lose here, has been a no-show.

Dion came to Halfax the other week and didn’t have five minutes to even phone it in.

We all know that Stephen Harper’s approach is to avoid talk radio – even super-friendly Western Conservative talk hosts. But, to their credit, the Conservatives had their top Tory, Peter Mackay, into the fray yesterday. Peter Mackay has even called into the show unannounced on other occasions.

The only reason loyal Nova Scotian and Liberal star Scott Brison hasn’t come on air yet during this election cycle is because he has been on the air with me lots, and Scott shouldn’t have to do all the heavy lifting for the federal Liberals. I haven’t asked Scott on yet and either has my producer Bill Dicks. But we will, we have to, especially with such a weak leader.

There is nothing wrong with Harper as the incumbent, playing the evasive game. It is politics and you do what works. To his credit less is more – it is good strategy. It is Harper’s election to lose. That’s how incumbents work. The only reason Liberal PM Paul Martin went on air with me during the last election is because the polls were showing he was losing – Paul was desperate.

I am sure that the quest to replace Dion is already underway – quietly. The dirty little secret of this election is this: Dion, as Liberal leader, is finished. The Liberals are merely waiting for this election to play out and are putting on a brave face.

For Dion, this election is already over. Even if the Liberals do better than they expect, it won’t be good enough to save him and keep him on as leader. The Liberals have no chance of winning this time, and their political flirtation with political apocalypse this time out is something they won’t soon forget.

And if these same Liberals and the backroom boys that work them have prescience or sentience at all (backbone would be nice too), they will disavow themselves of the distractions of a Gerard Kennedy or Martha Hall Findley.

It is time for Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff to, once again, fight it out.

In our political pundit panel this week, consisting of Conservative insider Kevin Lacey, NDP stalwart Jim Houston, and Liberal Senator Jim Cowan, it was former Harper PMO strategic planning manager Kevin Lacey (also Premier Rodney Macdonald’s campaign manager), who let forth the best zinger: in reference to the new Liberal emphasis on the Dion “team” of Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Scott Brison, Ken Dryden et al, versus the “one man band” approach of Stephen Harper, Lacey said “The Prime Minister’s chair is more than just a boy band”.

The Libs need to sell Canadians on the benefits of their team due to the sincere, but meeker, approach of Dion. The recent Liberal rally in Halifax this week, reported on by the national news media, is a case in point. When Bob Rae, who accompanied Dion, spoke, he pumped up the crowd. For Dion, there was kind applause.

Watching Dion speak is like cheering on your child at the school play — please Stephane, remember your lines, go the boy’s room first, make sure you don’t get too nervous — oh wait, is your fly up? Smile now.

Other revelations today included Liberal Defense Critic Brian Wilfert from Richmond Hill (poor Denis Codderre) revelations on the soon-to-be-announced cost of the Afghan war. It is a, gulp, 20 billion dollars! This includes the casualty healthcare costs of soldiers coming home with PTSD or other ailments, whoch will take years to treat.

The Liberals have no leg to stand on when it comes to Afghanistan; the Grits started the war (our combat role), they allowed Rick Hillier to make Defense policy (Rick knew we had no helicopters), and they voted for the Conservative extension of the mission to 2011 (?!)

The NDP have ludicrously suggested we just leave — now. Jock Layton told me this week it would be “orderly”, but should he be in the power chair he would know that we would not just leave. The advantage the NDP have (the Liberals are always pointing this out) is that they are not likely to form government, so they don’t have the same relationship between theoretical, populist, feel-good words and cold, real-life, hard-bitten actions.

The only time I ever saw Bob Rae lose his cool occurred during my last radio interview when I illustrated the absurdity of creating a mission re-emphasis in a combat zone: instead of cutting and running, like the NDP, or a protracted Afghan stay, like the Tories, the Libs wish to wallow in a combat zone in the south, but emphasize “reconstruction” over combat. To do that, I pointed out to Bob, you have to move out of Khandahar.

Since the vote for extension, Liberal policy on Afghanistan has been both irrelevant, and untenable.

Both the Grits and the Tories share the blame for the outrageous military and human cost of Afghanistan; where our Navy is, as a consequence, victimized by budgetary cannibalism; and where so much political water has been spilt over the Afghanistan dam.

And the boy-band of the Liberals plays on, these not-so-new-kids on the block, reunited and recriminating against the backbeat, with Stephen Harper as a modern-day Sinatra crooning My Way.

The cranks — and what would we do without them? They provide so much entertainment value don’t they? They seek to give meaning to their lives by chasing shadows and showing all of us that only they know the real story.

From UFO abductions, to the “one world government” freaks to the Free Mason fans, to “The Protocol of The Elders of Zion” crowd, to the British Royal family-killed-Diana troopers, to the Moon landing-was-faked folks – you name it.

They all show up the week we remember the day September 11, 2001.

In terms of conspiracy culture, it must be said that in the early days of JFK assassination studies, researchers like Donald Freed and Mark Lane as well as New Orleans’s Prosecutor Jim Garrison (made famous by Oliver Stone’s film JFK, despite the fact that there is much to Stone’s conclusions that were wrong), and others, were vilified and placed in the “crank” category too. Later on, in the mid-70s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that yes, indeed, there was a conspiracy in the murder of JFK.

But that doesn’t mean that everything is a conspiracy.

Consider this about 9/11: we all saw planes hit the buildings; we all knew that Osama Bin Laden declared war on America and the “Crusader” nations; the intelligence community also knew of Bin Laden’s earlier attacks on American embassies in Africa and the USS Cole; furthermore, we all know how easy it is to have a committed hit team, willing to sacrifice themselves, highjack an undefended, open, airliner cockpit.

Many of us who have studied politics over the years are well aware of “The Project for a New American Century,” which openly declared that Iraq should be invaded and that the U.S. military should actively promote America’s “full-spectrum” dominance — openly admitted to, publicly declared, a strategy in writing, with signatures and named names. For its doctrinal Fathers wanted to be known, and to take credit for the military approach. They were the Neo-Conservatives, former Liberals, who believed that the military efforts of the state could be marshaled to further American power generally, corporate needs of America specifically, as well as American special interest groups, including the Israel lobby.

They were not hiding. There was no secret society.

9/11 “Truthers” (what a joke that is), say that there must be something else: the buildings were brought down by planted explosives other than the planes themselves; that the heat from the planes burning wouldn’t be hot enough to melt metal.

Let’s look at that one, the one about explosives blowing up the towers. First of all, why?

Whether the building actually collapsed or not, the political and terror effect would’ve been the same. The Pentagon didn’t need to be totally destroyed for the point to be made by al Qaeda. So, this whole issue about explosives at the base and demolishing it and having it covered up by plane strikes, or assisted by plane strikes, is simply stupid, ludicrous.

Why would someone in the U.S. government want to have the attacks in the first place? Conspiracy drips call 9/11 a “Reichstag Fire” — where, in the 1930’s, Hitler promoted panic to accrue concentrated political power by committing arson on capital buildings and blaming the communists.

The authors of the “Project for a New American Century” openly discussed utilizing a “Pearl Harbor” style attack as a galvanizing opportunity to move forward. We all understand that such an event always had the power to mobilize the masses. So did the Neo Cons. Nothing was secret, hidden.

But if 9/11 was an “inside job,” why weren’t any of the highjackers Iraqi? Why weren’t weapons of mass destruction planted in Baghdad? Why can you plant explosives at the World Trade centre and then time it for live explosions when the planes strike, but not plant inert WMD in Iraq?

Why would America have to distract itself with a war in Afghanistan if the real goal was oil domination of Iraq? Iraqi highjackers would’ve solved that problem. Yet, they weren’t there. None of the 9/11 terrorists came from Iraq.

One 9/11 conspiracy crackpot even went so far as to doubt whether or not there were even any highjackers at all; that the Boeing corporation makes airplanes that can be remotely piloted.

The fact that these crazy notions by outrigtht cranks and crackpots exist despite the fact those who were victimized aboard the doomed airliners called out to their loved ones on their cell phones before the end and told the world what was going on.

Then there is the problem of the U.S. government response to the events on the day of 9/11. Instead of the obvious: shock, dismay, and outright bumbling by security forces, the “inside job” crowd says that there must be something else. The late scrambled jets must’ve been intentionally kept away from the attacks that day to ensure that the attacks occurred.

Was the 1993 basement bombing by al Qaeda a conspiracy too? Where were these conspiracy clowns then?

I guess Israel bombs itself too. The suicide bombers must all be Mossad.

When confronted by rabid Trekkies, William Shatner once challenged them. “Get a life,” he said.

Oh, but I forget. Captain Kirk was a Freemason. Or is he Jewish? Mossad perhaps?

Stephen Harper’s new attack ad (animation on a Tory website) and for which he later apologized, has Stephane Dion on the receiving end of bird poop.

You see, the Puffin is Dion’s favorite bird because it, apparently, buries its own feces — much like the Liberal party of Canada. Where is Gerard Kennedy these days anyway? You remember Gerard, don’t you? Gerard is the guy whose intrigues manipulated the Liberal convention to create Dion as Liberal leader when he, a former Ontario Liberal, was stopped.

What is worse than the Conservatives showing Dion dunked in dung –  the stuff of which Triumph the insult dog revels in? How about the Liberals, themselves, trying to add machismo and virility to bookish Dion by showing him in various outdoor activities on the www.thisisdion.ca, (remember Stockwell Day in a wet suit on a Sea-do?)

Stockwell Day, while an effective Cabinet Minister, never did connect with voters as a leader — the same way Dion doesn’t connect. And while Prme Minister Stepehn Harper has a huge charm and communication deficit as well, Harper’s policies do, in fact,  appeal to many men and his no-nonsense aura men also understand. Harper has also benefited from his lack of Christian fundamentalism, and social conservatism, something that when previousy exposed in Stockwell Day, torpedoed him in what is a liberal and secular media.

It is easy to portray Dion as feckless, and hapless, because he can’t speak unaccented English. And while voters forgave former PM Jean Chrétien due to his blue collar roots, toughness, Trudeau-era legacy, and his thoughtfully short sentences to the electronic media, professor Dion is another matter. He is an academic. There are no excuses.

Oh, apparently one excuse. Finally, Dion admitted that he has a hearing impairment that doesn’t allow him to hear “the music of English”. And while Dion’s English has improved, on a cell phone he can still be difficult to understand on a talk show – and that is a problem.

Answer this: would an Anglophone politician be successful in Quebec if his French was bad? It is a blatant truism and prerequisite that to be a successful politician in this country (or to have any Federal job), you have to sell your message in both languages, you have to be intelligent, and, hopefully, have a personality that wasn’t born from a car crash.

Dion’s facile and fatuous new website that has him posing as a man-of-action Irish Spring soap man, is unintentionally much worse for its affections and pretensions than the sympathy he will receive by the computer animated, Tory confected, pooping Puffin bird.

Any animation, with Dion, will help.

I once asked a friend what his reaction was when he walked out of a Toronto store and a pigeon shat on his shoulder. He told me he went out later that day and bought a lottery ticket.

My friend took the pooping as a sign of good luck. So did his dry cleaner.

And Stephen Harper will take Stephane Dion to the cleaners soon too.

Last week, Nova Scotia Premier, Rodney McDonald, came on air to disparage the Federal Liberal Party’s “Green Shift” carbon tax initiative. Immediately after the Premier hung up, the Liberal carbon tax point man, Scott Brison, came on to counter the Premier’s attacks.

Tuesday August 26^th, 2008, the day after that broadcast, the editorial in the Chronicle Herald correctly pointed out that the Premier “recoiled” from a debate with Liberal point man, Scott Brison. The editorial went on to question why the Nova Scotia government would sponsor a web site that misled Nova Scotians by not including the Liberal tax cuts into their carbon tax “cost” calculator.

It was former Public Works Minister, and MP for Kings Hants, Scott Brison, who directly “outed” the fact that Premier MacDonald refused to come on my program at the same time as he, and that Brison had to call in 30 minutes after the Premier.

It shouldn’t be about debating. It should be about the Premier expressing concerns about a policy that may hit his Province particularly hard. The act of debating (or losing a debate, more precisely), should only be an issue if you are a shill, or a Federal Party flatulence-catcher.

While real men don’t eat quiche, real Premiers don’t sycophantically placate Ottawa just because the party name starts with the letter “C”.

Explain Danny William’s loyalty? He was a Newfoundlander first, and a Tory second; same with Bill Davis in Ontario, Peter Loughheed in Alberta, Quebec’s Robert Bourassa and Jean Charest, and Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty who had to whine to Paul Martin over city funding in Ontario.

Federal votes don’t elect Premiers. In fact, the opposite is usually true.

And defending your Province against Ottawa is a necessity as a Premier; where the Province is blood, and Ottawa, water.

But Stephane Dion is not the Prime Minister. Stephen Harper is. So, why the hard sell by the Nova Scotia Premier against the opposition party? Is it really about the plan, or Federal party loyalties?

Mr. Premier you have to ask Mr. Harper how much his green policy is going to cost consumers.

Both Peter Mackay and Environment Minister Baird have told me the Conservative plan is to cut green house gas emissions by 20 per cent. OK great, but how? What is the Federal Conservative plan? Can anybody spell out the specifics?

That wonderful world of weaseling wafted in with all its rodent redolence last week when Environment Minister John Baird (a decent enough guy, personally) announced that his party won’t reveal their carbon regulations, and its’ impact to the consumer, until after the election!

I will say again, if you are a Premier and you enter the fray of carbon tax policy debate, you will only care about “losing” a debate with a person like Scott Brison if you are trying to score points somewhere else.

If you are an honest broker, you ask your Province to support that which is in its best interests — despite what Ottawa sells, and despite the Federal party that sponsors it.

We already know that Ottawa does not work in Eastern Canada’s, or the West’s or
Ontario’s best interests. Recent history points to the Stephen Harper created crisis over the Atlantic Accord, where the government changed the original offshore revenue and equalization deal and said it was offering “options”.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely trust Ottawa. At least here in Nova Scotia you can run into your Premier in the grocery store. That’s accountability. Accountability you can trust.

Stephen Harper’s new TV ad has him leaning and leering into the camera in a pullover we used to wear in high school in the 70’s, replete with a vaguely creepy expression and proceeded by a sea of staged testimonials regarding the issue of trust.

If only Stephen Harper didn’t have Karla Holmolka’s eyes.