A really bad joke...

Really, this has to be some sort of bad joke:

LONDON, Ont.–John Tory abruptly changed his mind late last night, deciding to stay on as Progressive Conservative party leader less than four hours after telling delegates their 66.9 per cent support might not be enough.

The stunning switch came after Tory was slammed by critics for being indecisive about his future following a leadership review vote and urged by supporters to stay on and make his intentions clear.

Courage? Prudence? Aren't those essential character traits of a leader? John Not-So-Tory seems to lack both.

Look - to be fair the man has positives. He has the work ethic, and the personality ethic that's required of a leader.

But it's precisely the quality that his supporters cling to as being essential for the PC party to win in Ontario that is his ultimate flaw: his uncanny ability to change his mind.

His supporters say he's "open to input."

I think he wants to be friends with everyone.

That doesn't make for a good leader let alone a good Politician.

All the PC Party can do now is salavage whatever's left of John Not-So-Tory's leadership and hope everyone forgets by 2011.

Tory or not to Tory?

Lo' and behold John Not-So-Tory was in town last night. The venerable PC party leadership convention is being held in London Ontario - my humble abode as of sometime last year - who cares when.

The Delta Armouries "hotel" is a confusing place. It used to be an "armoury" I'm assuming based on the exterior and it's name. Somewhere along the lines Delta Hotels must have bought it or something.

It looks like a military museum turned into a resort. There's waterfalls. There's fancy carpets. There's see through elevators.

I can just imagine some flight seargants are rolling in their graves.

I managed to catch John Not-So-Tory in the elevator. Not much speech in him. His overall appearance could be summed up in one word: ticked.

Who wouldn't be? His leadership is on the line. And it's a job he'd like to keep.

So in John Toryland, that means it's ok to use his influence on the party apparatus to disqualify delegates in good standing that happen to mostly come from the "Yes let's boot Tory" camp.

Of course He'll deny he's done it. And the party apparatus will deny along with him.

This really should surprise no one. I don't think for a moment that most people in the "yes" camp wouldn't use these tactics if their roles were reversed. Morality becomes pliable for eveyone once they've attained power unless they're particularly adept at fighting temptation.

In the end the "Yes" camp has laid down the gauntlet of legal action.

Great. Six months will go by and then, much later, the courts will deliver justice. By that point the debate over John Tory's leadership will be long done.

The "Yes" camp should smack itself into shape.

If they didn't expect something like this to happen they should have. The thing to do right now is not to complain and worry. The thing to do is to counter the attack.

The real attack here is directed at the momentum of the "Yes" campaign. This move is primarily meant to reduce the number of "yes" delegates surely, but secondarily it's meant to discourage others from even showing up.

The "yes" campaign should be rallying the troops against this with the simple battle cry "They must be worried!"

Leadership? Anyone?

I can't help but conclude that this a fundamental mistake both strategically and politically for Harper's government:

The Harper government has unveiled a new motion to end the Canadian military mission in the volatile Kandahar region of Afghanistan by the end of 2011. And the Liberals appear ready to support it, apparently removing one possible election trigger.

Firstly Harper's popularity in the polls puts him in an extremely good bargaining position. The deal he's getting isn't as good as he could have gotten out of Dion.

Secondly, this is bad politics. We were taken the lead in Afghanistan - doing the work no one wanted to do. We were taking up the slack. It's something that has no material rewards and that alone makes it good politics because it's the principled position to take.

We shouldn't be passing the buck - we should be at the forefront of fighting for what's right.

That used to be something Canada wasn't afraid of doing.

Blah, Blah, Blah... Spend my money why don't yah?

Dion's latest is a classic:

OTTAWA — A Liberal government would spend any windfall surpluses beyond $3-billion on fixing Canada's failing infrastructure, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion promised Friday.

Mr. Dion's windfalls-for-potholes pledge is a direct attack on the Conservative government's refusal to fork out more cash to fix what Canadian mayors have described as an infrastructure crisis.

The promise also mirrors former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien's 1993 campaign pledge to create "jobs, jobs, jobs" through infrastructure spending.

”Canada is facing an aging population. We will not pass onto our children crumbling bridges, leaky water pipes and insufficient public transit,” Mr. Dion told a Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting in Ottawa.

So basically, spend spend spend and the economy will explode with growth. The only problem with that concept is that the state is not a source of wealth - it's a leach at best, a destructive helluva bear at worst.

It isn't the federal government's role to fix pot holes. The BNA act of 1867 was pretty specific on that point.

Municipalities should suck it up, and make the cutbacks they need to make sure the world keeps on spinning and the roads keep on getting plowed.

And if that isn't enough, they should consider privatization of services. Toll roads are an obvious choice that is environmentally beneficial and are way overdue in this country.