http://phantomobserver.com/blog/?p=9812
<b>On Petty Justice (Or: Just Clean Out Your Desk, Ralph) </b>
That the Liberal Party’s deputy leader should have to move to another office (since his party’s standings have fallen to third and the New Democrats need the space) should not have surprising. What is surprising is that his party chose to complain about it:
What rankles Grits is that Mr. Goodale has so much seniority and deserves a little respect, having served in senior cabinet posts from finance to natural resources. . . . One Grit said the New Democrats are certainly not playing nice. Even the Tories, who won 166 seats and had first call on the offices, let the Liberals be and didn’t ask them to give up any office space.
The question may come up as to why Mr. Goodale should have to move, while Stéphane Dion (who also has an office in Centre Block) doesn’t. To answer that, I find myself looking over some of my past blogposts on Mr. Goodale:
•27 Sep 2005: Mr. Goodale, then finance minister, dismisses the Tories as “a gaggle of silly people.”
•29 May 2009: in opposition, Mr. Goodale criticizes Tory MP Pierre Poilievre for using the phrase “tar baby.”
•29 Apr 2010: as House Leader, Mr. Goodale forbids Liberal caucus members from offering any sort of tribute to the retiring New Democrat, Judy Wasylycia-Leis.
My conclusion: the Hon. Ralph Goodale, PC, is a petty politician.
This sort of pettiness has nothing to do with his popularity among the constituents of Wascana, nor has it any connection to his abilities as a minister. It has its roots in hyperpartisanship, not the type that affiliates via common cause but the coarser type that goes “my party, always right.” It manifests itself as an almost casual lack of respect for differing viewpoints, which is extremely irritating when you’re trying to negotiate an agenda and a schedule for your party members to speak in the House. It’s not something that affects all politicians: Mr. Dion doesn’t have it, for example, which is one of the reasons why the New Democrats are content to leave him where he is.
Normally, such pettiness is of so little consequence that it’s not worth the effort of complaining about: what, after all, can be done if the practitioner is unmotivated to change? It’s therefore dismissed as partisanship for the course. But, like the pricks of a pin that eventually result in an unsightly hole in the cloth, the irritations can grow — to the point where, given an opportunity, a form of retribution will almost certainly happen. And, as a House leader in charge of negotiating the Parliamentary agenda with the other House leaders, Mr. Goodale was in a position to irritate a few New Democrats beyond what was required to do his job.
As for those points about being entitled to a little respect? One, grandness of a career has nothing to do with petty behaviour: if the Liberals say Stephen Harper indulges in it, they shouldn’t be surprised when their critics say the same about their own. Two, the notion of “entitlement” is one of the ideas that put the Liberals into their current hole in the first place (hello Mr. Dingwall).
The Third Party needs to remember: this is new world for them, one that’s frankly uninterested in keeping them in their former glory. Their members will be subjected to a thousand little indignities like this, based purely on their reduced circumstances; it would be as well to endure it, don’t complain about it, and learn. After all, their state’s called “purgatory” for a reason.
<b>On Petty Justice (Or: Just Clean Out Your Desk, Ralph) </b>
That the Liberal Party’s deputy leader should have to move to another office (since his party’s standings have fallen to third and the New Democrats need the space) should not have surprising. What is surprising is that his party chose to complain about it:
What rankles Grits is that Mr. Goodale has so much seniority and deserves a little respect, having served in senior cabinet posts from finance to natural resources. . . . One Grit said the New Democrats are certainly not playing nice. Even the Tories, who won 166 seats and had first call on the offices, let the Liberals be and didn’t ask them to give up any office space.
The question may come up as to why Mr. Goodale should have to move, while Stéphane Dion (who also has an office in Centre Block) doesn’t. To answer that, I find myself looking over some of my past blogposts on Mr. Goodale:
•27 Sep 2005: Mr. Goodale, then finance minister, dismisses the Tories as “a gaggle of silly people.”
•29 May 2009: in opposition, Mr. Goodale criticizes Tory MP Pierre Poilievre for using the phrase “tar baby.”
•29 Apr 2010: as House Leader, Mr. Goodale forbids Liberal caucus members from offering any sort of tribute to the retiring New Democrat, Judy Wasylycia-Leis.
My conclusion: the Hon. Ralph Goodale, PC, is a petty politician.
This sort of pettiness has nothing to do with his popularity among the constituents of Wascana, nor has it any connection to his abilities as a minister. It has its roots in hyperpartisanship, not the type that affiliates via common cause but the coarser type that goes “my party, always right.” It manifests itself as an almost casual lack of respect for differing viewpoints, which is extremely irritating when you’re trying to negotiate an agenda and a schedule for your party members to speak in the House. It’s not something that affects all politicians: Mr. Dion doesn’t have it, for example, which is one of the reasons why the New Democrats are content to leave him where he is.
Normally, such pettiness is of so little consequence that it’s not worth the effort of complaining about: what, after all, can be done if the practitioner is unmotivated to change? It’s therefore dismissed as partisanship for the course. But, like the pricks of a pin that eventually result in an unsightly hole in the cloth, the irritations can grow — to the point where, given an opportunity, a form of retribution will almost certainly happen. And, as a House leader in charge of negotiating the Parliamentary agenda with the other House leaders, Mr. Goodale was in a position to irritate a few New Democrats beyond what was required to do his job.
As for those points about being entitled to a little respect? One, grandness of a career has nothing to do with petty behaviour: if the Liberals say Stephen Harper indulges in it, they shouldn’t be surprised when their critics say the same about their own. Two, the notion of “entitlement” is one of the ideas that put the Liberals into their current hole in the first place (hello Mr. Dingwall).
The Third Party needs to remember: this is new world for them, one that’s frankly uninterested in keeping them in their former glory. Their members will be subjected to a thousand little indignities like this, based purely on their reduced circumstances; it would be as well to endure it, don’t complain about it, and learn. After all, their state’s called “purgatory” for a reason.
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