Ignatieff set to announce run for Liberal leadership

[Minstrel Boy]

March 25 Globe and Mail:

Michael Ignatieff will deliver what his strategists are calling a "vision speech" Thursday in Ottawa as a prelude to his formal announcement that he is running for the Liberal leadership.

The former Harvard professor and rookie Liberal MP is expected to outline his views on national unity, the economy and his controversial support of the war in Iraq in his speech on Canada and its role in the world to University of Ottawa political-science students.

...

Mr. Ignatieff has the backing of some Liberal heavyweights, including Ontario Liberal Senator David Smith, a savvy organizer who was a senior strategist with both Jean Chrétien and Mr. Martin. Mr. Smith has been providing Mr. Ignatieff, who has not lived in Canada for three decades, introductions to Liberals. There is also speculation that former Ontario premier David Peterson, who would have supported former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna had he joined the race, is now backing Mr. Ignatieff.

...

On the issue of foreign policy, Mr. Ignatieff is described as a 21st-century realist, much like Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "It's no longer a world for Boy Scouts. . . . The role for Canada continues to be a peacemaking, peace-building role but it is totally legitimate for us to be playing a role in sharing security like we are in Afghanistan," the Ignatieff supporter said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060325.MICHAEL25/TPStory/National

[ClusterFreak]

1. I don't like the guy.

He has the appearance of someone from the country club who decides to go slumming for kicks. In other words, a patrician Harvard elitist (I carefully choose those words, normally associated with a stereotypical image and not a real one. But here, it's real) decides to go slap some backs and kiss some middle class babies. Mikey certainly ain't in this for the money. Is it the power? Presumably. The prestige? Now, you're gettin' it I think. The guy oozes insincerity, and I fear I'd get it all over my hands after shaking his.

Dude creeps me out.

[glarius]

2. When I saw him on CNN championing the attack on Iraq before he even

"came home" to run for office, that was enough for me....If he's for that illegal war, that's all I need to know to be against him....

[Telly Savalas]

3. So if we had only one national party with a leader opposed to the Iraq

debacle, would the Liberal bullies demanding we have a "united Left" switch to this party?

[glarius]

4. Huh?

:shrug:

[Telly Savalas]

6. Say Ignatieff wins the Liberal leadership

then given his hawkish position, wouldn't it be fair to say that the NDP would be the only remaining party that could in anyway be construed as "left"? So would all the Liberals who've been saying we need to "unite the Left" abandon the Liberal Party and join the NDP?

[glarius]

7. I'm commenting on my impression of Ignatieff....period!

Your conclusions regarding uniting the left are yours...nothing to do with what I was commenting on.

[V. Kid]

8. Well it's an interesting question though...

...I remember that you and Chimpy's last stand were some of the more vociferous voices in favour of everyone voting Liberal to stop the Conservatives. Well, if you'd have to "oppose him" if he became the Liberal leader, I suppose that would mean you wouldn't vote Liberal anymore, yes?

[glarius]

9. No....you are wrong.

Look, I'm not a rabid party person. In the past I have voted for all three parties...Liberals, NDP (in Ontario) and Progressive Conservatives (pre Reform party days) at one time or another. Right now, I would vote for the Liberals no matter who was leading them. I just want to be rid of Harper and his right-wing bunch of zealots.

[Bragi]

10. Agreed

glarius wrote:

Right now, I would vote for the Liberals no matter who was leading them. I just want to be rid of Harper and his right-wing bunch of zealots.

This makes complete sense to me, but when anyone says as much here, I notice that they are quickly villified by the usual pack of incensed NDP zealots here, who will eventually get around to accusing them of being either a) corrupt Martinites up to their elbows in payola and sleeze, or b) closet, Bush-loving Harperites.

Sewms like nothing gets NDP partisans as hot and bothered these days as calls to unite the centre-left vote so as to defeat Harper. I think this has to do with certain personality types, who put purely partisan considerations ahead of what's good for the country.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

12. "no matter who was leading them"

What a wonderful strategy you have there, putting the carte blanche before the cart.

It must warm Ignatieff's cockels - and Stronach's and Brison's and God knows who else - that your support is unconditional. What tremendous leverage for "progressives" in the Liberal Party.

[ClusterFreak]

13. So, I'm just skimming through a thread in the Canada Forum...

...and all of the sudden I see my name mentioned by another poster! Well, to be sure at first I was flattered...wondering, with nervous excitement, what this person was saying about me. Then, I read the post. Ah, I see...this person is carrying on a disagreement from some topic posted SEVERAL MONTHS AGO. Not sure if you're supposed to do that, but anyway. Did I ask "everyone" to vote Liberal to stop the Conservatives? I scrolled back into the Canada Forum to try and find any posts where I may have said something to this effect, although I found none. Maybe you can point me to where I DID say something like that. If so, I'm sure the way I said it wasn't quite the way you are representing it. Perhaps I was talking about the Liberals having a chance to form a government, and not the NDP, so voting Liberal would help stop the Conservatives from winning. That's a far cry from exhorting "everyone", as you put it, to vote Liberal. However, I did find this little tidbit...which I posted a week or so BEFORE the election was called:

Posted Fri., Nov. 18/05 @9:55pm
"Vote any way you want....glarius would like to see the Liberals returned to power. So she's a Liberal. You appear to be an NDP supporter. So vote for an NDP candidate in your riding, and help them keep the Liberals from forming a minority or majority. So do it. Everybody will vote the way they want. Nuff said."

And in future....please refrain from mentioning my name, or attempting to represent my position ON ANYTHING, when I'm not actively participating in a thread (i.e. the post I made earlier in this thread was made on Saturday, and your post was made two days later). It's not exactly fair is it. I just happened to stumble across your post today...but it could have been several more days or longer. What you did is really the equivalent of a discussion board sucker punch. I didn't even know I was in a debate and then WHAM, right in the kisser.

Anyway....nuff said....again.

[V. Kid]

15. It was used as an example of how ...

...one should vote Liberal regardless of the individual who knows, there were a lot of people advocating that position, and whether or not they're you, bragi, glarius, whatever it's not that important. So if you didn't, fine, I'm sorry for saying you did.

Look, we all have our prefrenes. But if Dick Cheney were to become a Canadian and run for the NDP, and say he supported NDP policies, I sure as hell wouldn't vote for him even though I'd prefer to vote NDP over other parties (generally). Ultimatley what the individual says AND DOES is important, ultimatley the individual candidate matters. Now how any of this is relevent to the topic at hand is simple. Ignatieff says he's a liberal, but he's sure as heck willing to violate basic liberal democratic principles as they relate to freedom so as to "protect them". Well, as the old saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". As such, I'd rather not travel that road. And I'm intrested in why people are willing to hold their nose to vote for him just because he's a capital-L-liberal, doesn't mean he's a real liberal. And it's that simple, just take a look at his position on the Iraq War, take a look at his position on torture. It's disgusting. It's a make or brake issue, and he's broken it, as it were.

[ClusterFreak]

16. I don't think you get it...

...the point is: don't resurrect some old debate, claim to know what a specific person's point of view is, when in fact you don't know... all the while mentioning them by name while they are absent from the active discussion. And you did it again, just now (i.e. "bragi, glarius, whatever...")

Your point about Ignatieff appears not to be so much about his failings, as it's about the failings as you see them of Liberals in general. If you're liberal, then of course you like Ignatieff. That seems to be your point. That's hogwash. I'm a liberal, and I have no use for the guy. I said so in my post earlier in this thread. I'm not an automaton...Liberal good....NDP and Conservative bad.

[V. Kid]

17. No, I'm afraid that you don't get it...

....the point was that some people on this site, as you well know, mention that "the left" needs to be united and that the vehicle for that is the Liberal Party. And that therefore, regardless of the leader, so-called real progressive people need to vote Liberal. Well, as we can see with Ignatieff as a potential Liberal leader, that would be hogwosh as he's not progressive in the least nor is he much of a liberal. My view of Liberal Party policy is not relevent to this discussion. I'm speaking about the concept of a potentially Ignatieff lead Liberal Party supposidly being the vehicle by which progressive, liberal, left-leaning etc people vote so as to "stop the Conservatives" -- since I would assume that no one posting here is in favour of torture and the Iraq War, after all?

I've apologized to you specifically, as I confused your name with someone elses (as I don't visit this site everyday single day) so you don't need to lecture me. As such the point stands.

And I'm glad that your not an automoton, that's as tony the tiger would say g-rrrrreat. As you can see though, Bragi, and Glarius have posted to this thread, and have confirmed my suspisions by essentially saying that yes they would vote Liberal if he was leading the party, because Harper is just so much worse for Canada. I personally disagree, and wish to discredit that hypothesis. And just so you know, it's not an old debate (it's stale, but it's not old), follow every single bragi post, they're all the same (Liberals good, NDP bad for splitting "anti-Conservative vote").

[ClusterFreak]

18. The issue at hand here, the issue which YOU INTRODUCED to this thread

...is that myself and other posters during the election campaign said "everyone" should vote Liberal, to stop the Conservatives. What in the FUCK does that comment - be it truth or fiction - have to do with this thread, which discusses Ignatieff's merits (or complete lack thereof) as the leader of the Liberal Party, or God forbid, Prime Minister? What does the current thread have to do with what may or may not have been said by me or anyone else, in a previous thread?? It has nothing to do with anything, and your re-introduction of these supposed beliefs and comments by myself and others is nothing more than a nakedly obvious attempt to inflame. The issue of whether you "confused" my DU name with someone else's is irrelevant. You don't seem to have a problem with mentioning names, as long as they're the "right" names. Therefore, you'll allow yourself to apologize to me for mentioning my name in error. Bullshit.

Check this out: "Do not follow someone into another thread to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere. Do not talk negatively about an individual in a thread where they are not participating. Do not post messages with the purpose of "calling out" another member or picking a fight with another member."

....yes, these are the DU rules...and they apply when you are mentioning my name, in error or not, or anyone else's name and supposed previous posts you care to re-introduce.

End of "lecture".

[V. Kid]

19. My, my, someone is taking this ridiculously personally...

...and being ridiculously unpleasnt. Perhaps you should calm down and read my posts, and take a while to respond, instead of being reactionary.

I've explained this before, but I'll re-phrase it again. As you've mentioned people are discussing whether or not Ignatieff would make a good Liberal leader. As such I wished to clarify whether or not the strategy that some Liberal supporters are advocating, the strategy of people supporting the Liberals so as to stop the Conservatives, would be an effective one if they recruited Mr.Ignatieff to be the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. I don't think it would. Because there would be no way I would vote for ANY Liberal candidate, even if I was in a riding with a crazy right-wing neanderthal running in a tight race (where it would make sense to vote strategically) with a Liberal, because a party lead by that man, where he could become Prime Minister, without him apologizing and recanting his previous statements, and making assurances that he would not advocate such positions, would be an extreme danger for Canada. That has to do with his leadership, that has to do with a potential strategy to deal with Stephen Harper, that has to do with whom our next Prime Minister could be and that is VERY RELEVENT to the issue at hand. Civil liberties, and our freedoms should not be compramised full stop. Mr.Ignatieff believes they should be. As I said that is make or break, and a potential Prime Minister should not do so at the drop of a hat, nor should they advocate such a position.

And btw you are being somewhat silly, I mean really, this is a current affairs board. People have opinions. Sometimes they're un-able to convince others of the rightness of their opinions, as such they disagree from thread to thread as they remember "oh yeah X believes Y on Z issue" and creates short hand so as to not have to explain every little aspect of their opinion in every single new thread and post. Jeesh it's not like this board is a giant flame factory, this isn't free republic or some other nutty place. I'm sure we're all alot more civil with each other then some of those other places. I'm pretty sure the owners of DU understand these issues, after all this board has been around for how long? After all sometimes it facilitates more efficient conversation. The only person I mentioned "in calling out" was you. The other people had already posted. But I suppose that whole personality issue is more important than the other issue (Ignatieff's leadership candidacy and the implications of it) at hand which I explained so simplistically that I'm not going to bother responding to anything more you say on this subject, as I'm pretty sure you understand my position even if you disagree with it, but are being rightously indignant for the sake of it and avoding the real issue not this stupid side show about manners.

[ClusterFreak]

22. Ignatieff, yes, is the issue....

Let's all have our say about that, here, on this thread. Absolutely. When and where did I say discussing the issue of him leading the Liberals was out of bounds? It's what this thread is all about for gawd sakes. We're talking about him, his potential candidacy, what we don't like about it, etc. You still do not get it. You can say I'm being "ridiculously unpleasant" or "silly" or "indignant", or "reactionary" or whatever all you want. And a "stupid side show about manners"? Gimme a break. You kept alive and brought forward an old argument, and introduced it to a new thread. Period. It has dick all to do with manners. There are parameters to each thread, lots of leeway, but parameters exist nonetheless. Next time you want to comment on something I said weeks or months ago, go find that thread in the archives, and put your post there. Wanna start a thread asking why some DU'ers in the Canada Forum wanted "everyone" to vote Liberal in the last election to stop the Conservatives? Go nuts. I can't possibly be any more clear than that. And I too, am out.

I bid you an 'indignant' nighty night.

[MrPrax]

5. Arrogant Intellectual Extremist

I hate this guy...he actually believes the Bush rhetoric which doesn't make him a 'realist'--more like 'fantasist supporting grand visions of genocidal war dressed up with intellectual apologia'.

I heard him before the invasion and he was a pro-active supporter of the Hitchens 'regime change' crowd; his argument was that Iraqis needed democracy and an end to Saddam's reign of terror and he seemed to really believe that the anti-war movement were dupes.

Fair enough, the Iraqis deserve much better. But a brutal land invasion by a very foreign occupier is not really the best way to go.

He is a person that believes that social change, justice and improvement to an country can come about through wanton murder and destruction.

Why anyone would think, for a single minute, that the bedlam of war would provide a background to democracy or social justice, a person who think this is dangerous and completely unacceptable as a leader of any kind.

The fact he hasn't been living here for nearly 30 years should make anyone pause to wonder if Ignatieff has a 'love' of Canada and it's people, or an intellectual curiosity to experiment.

One really does have to consider that someone who, for the most part, spent each and everyday and interaction for the LAST three decades, with Americans--NOT Canadians. You really do NOT get much of a working knowledge of the culture and it's people.

Ignatieff is a social scientist in the worst possible sense...

[SixStrings]

11. This guy? People will vote for him just because he is a 'Liberal'?

This fucking guy? Who said this...

"To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war. These are evils because each strays from national and international law and because they kill people or deprive them of freedom without due process. They can be justified only because they prevent the greater evil."


http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/opeds/2004/ignatieff_less_evils_nytm_050204.htm

So, from what I am reading here, people will put there trust in this guy just because he is a 'Liberal'?

We are so screwed as a nation.

[V. Kid]

14. So Ignatieff is better than Harper?

You know Harper, not even in his wildest fantasy's, would not be able to get away with sending our troops to Iraq. And being the biggest sycophantic apologist for American foreign policy, to the determinent of Canadian Sovreignty. Harper has to at least make noises in favour of Canada, Ignatieff, because he's a Liberal apparently, which is apparently good enough, can say whatever he wants. Harper at least has had to look like a fake and fraud backpeddling from his earlier support of the war, whereas Ignatieff just had to say "apparently I'm on the far right of Canadian opinion about this <The Iraq War>". Apparently because he's not Harper, he's better then Harper. Well, I can tell you that there's one riding in Canada where I would've considered strategic voting for the Conservatives, and that my friends is Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Some moderate Conservative backbencher (John Capabianco if anyone is keeping score) is far better then this guy. This guy is a trojan horse, far scary-er than any of the jokers the Reformatories could launch at us. At least with the Reformatories, we can see what they're doing. Don't you people get it, Ignatieff is a Bush Administration apologist? If you've signed up for DU, I would think that that's a pretty big no-no.

[Bragi]

20. Reality check...

Ignatieff isn't going to win the leadership in large part because few Liberals agree with his position on Iraq, and hence a) distrust him and b) know he isn't someone they would want representing their party.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

21. Excuse me while I

dust off my time machine and see for myself.

Ignatieff is a favourite of Martinites, and Martinites still control the party.

The most recent leadership polling info I've seen, from a SES survey of late Jan - early Feb:

Unsure 28%
Ken Dryden 14%
Bob Rae 12%
Michael Ignatieff 12%
Belinda Stronach 11%
Frank McKenna 7%
Brian Tobin 7%
Anne McLellan 4%
Joe Volpe 3%
Martin Cauchon 1%
Other 2%

Regardless, you stated in this thread re your support the leader and the leader's positions are irrelevant: he or she already has a lock on your vote.

[Bragi]

23. Wait a minute...

If I implied otherwise, I certainly didn't intend to suggest that I would vote Liberal regardless of who wins the leadership. If they elected a Harper-like right wing zealot for leader, for example, I wouldn't consider voting Liberal. But I see no realistic prospect that the Libs will do that, given the core beliefs of the Party, and what with their penchant for wanting to actually win elections.

This is why I see no prospect that Ignatieff will win the leadership. However, if for some bizarre reason he or some other right wing Harperian zealot did win, then I guess I'd likely stay home on election day, or even piss away my vote by voting Green or NDP, but I don't expect that the Libs will elect a right wing zealot.

- B

[David in Canada]

24. Governo Gattling!

Anyone else, besides me, think he strongly resembles Governor James Gattling from the 1980's sitcom Benson?

[Wabbajack]

25. Wow he looks like John Kerry in that shot

[Telly Savalas]

26. Sort of like a hybrid of Kerry and that DA from "Law and Order"

[V. Kid]

27. I watched him on QP last Sunday, he's kind of unpleasnt...

...maybe it was just because Craig Oliver was asking him such difficult questions, but he seemed almost annoyed that he'd have such pointed questions asked about his candidacy. He's defenetly smart, but is he smart enough to hide his contempt for people? Also, while he did side step the accusations of him being more of an American then a Canadian, the way he did it was a bit corny but I can't say either way whether or not it'll be effective. It doesn't convince me, then again I wouldn't have voted for him in any case.