Williams The Fool

These ads are brilliant:

Williams, who says he hasn't seen the ads but held a news conference today to respond to them, says he would be happy if Stephen Harper were voted out of office "this afternoon." The federal Conservatives are expected to hit back this week against the premier with radio and print ads to run in Newfoundland and Labrador that accuse him of running a misinformation campaign over the federal budget.

Last week Williams took out print ads in newspapers across the country, accusing Harper of breaking a promise over equalization.

What hollow words from the premier who once railed against the US government for daring to launch rockets hundreds of klicks in the atmo over Newfoundland. See, he was afraid that debris would fall on an offshore oil platform and well... kabloee!

He eventually toned down his remarks over the affair once someone finally drove the point home to him that he was acting like an idiot. The chances of something like that happening should leave anyone wondering who was advising Williams, or whether no one was.

I don't see his behaviour over the budget being all that different. Saying Stephen Harper lied is a stretch if I ever heard one. He fulfilled his commitment to Newfoundland by allowing NF to exclude non-renewable resources from equalization payments. That's a fact. He can deny it all he wants to.

Now the deal is that Harper put a cap on what those exclusions can be. That's what the issue is here. The deal was not as rosy posy as Williams and NF would have liked it to be. Fair enough. But this tirade over "lying" is completely unwarranted. Williams is making his province seem like a cry baby that doesn't like the fact that it's been left out from the goodies.

Trust me they are better off in NF without the federal intrusion this money would bring. The spending orgy in Quebec is going to do more harm to that province than good. Solving the fiscal imbalance was going to have to involve disappointing some - and turning some friends into enemies.