Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Behold the Asian curling tiger
This year's world women's curling championship, which ended yesterday, was a real wakeup call for all who take Canada's dominance in the sport for granted. The Canadian team won gold yesterday, but they had to work for it like never before.
Enter the Asians. In what would have previously been an unheard of occurrence, Canada lost to China in the round-robin play and again in the first playoff game. but bested them in the final. The Chinese didn't play well, perhaps due to the pressure. The Japanese team, which just about (and probably should have) beat Canada in the second playoff game, finished fourth after losing to Denmark in the bronze medal game.
Consider that China 1) has only a couple of hundred curlers out of a population of nearly 1.5 billion; and 2) has no curling clubs. Had they won gold, it would have been like the Jamaican bobsled team winning the Olympics. These ladies were amazing.
The Japanese and Chinese are both coached by Canadians and have benefited greatly from our expertise in the sport. And this is only the beginning. The days of it being a foregone conclusion that Canada would win at the world championship are gone for good.
The possibility is now being floated of a Hillary Clinton campaign for governor of New York in order to best position herself for the 2012 nomination. Assuming Obama wins the nomination and then loses to McCain in November, this scenario is quite plausible. As the article notes, McCain would be 75 and may not run for a second term, and it has historically been much easier to go from governor to the White House than from the Senate to the White House.
Many people think the Clinton candidacy this year was a one-time shot at the presidency, but I don't think so. She could well reappear and give it another run.
Filmmaker Lionel Chetwynd -- who was apparently an active Young Liberal back in the day -- lets it fly on Obama (via David Mader) and makes some interesting parallels to Trudeau:
I have seen this virus before; it devastated a country I loved, a place that nurtured me and raised me up.
In that Canadian day, we called it "Trudeaumania," the suggestion of "Beatlemania" pop idol glitter being no accident. Even those of us in his Liberal party were powerless to stop the mad embrace millions of Canadians threw around Pierre Elliott Trudeau with his promise of reconciliation of the two founding peoples, a happy era when the English (more correctly, Scottish) heritage would join hands with the French legacy and take us forward into a brave new age. And he'd reforge our relationship with "The Elephant to our South."
That he was completely non-specific, avoiding policy questions in favour of depending entirely on his style and panache (and goodness knows, he had a surfeit of both) would surely undo him -- or so those of us who believed him to be a hard line leftist (because we'd read his essays in Cite Libre and studied his record) reassured ourselves.
Of course, we were wrong; his very lack of specificity was his strength. A brilliant orator, he spun webs around huge crowds, proposing big ideas in obscure terms, making it possible for the listener to impose any dream they wished upon his smiling, Savile Row-suited tabula rasa. He was all things to all people. In service to "party loyalty" and civility, we held our tongues.
And, in the meantime, the delighted English-language media, at last faced with a French-speaking Canadian they could love, dubbed him "Canada's JFK." By the time he and they were done, the damage would be staggering, even two generations later.
In the 1960s, Canada still basked in the glory of the extraordinary achievements of its own Greatest Generation. She had raised the largest army in the world, per capita, to fight Hitler (1.4 million out of a population of 11 million) and had emerged from the Second World War as the world's second-largest industrial power, devoting a vast part of this treasure to financing the Colombo Plan, "the Marshall Plan of Asia." To this day, much of the infrastructure of Pakistan, India and South Asia was paid for by Canadians. Those Canadians had scarcely any quotas or laws against American popular culture; indeed, they generally viewed the United States with affection, some even with admiration. True, many harboured a residual anger at America's over-two-year delay in entering the war, but it was a family squabble that could be put aside. The greatest bloom of that Canada was 1967, the summer of Expo.
Amazing that we have to go to Lionel Chetwynd, who hasn't lived in Canada for years, for a decent history lesson.
As fervently as I oppose the concept of schadenfreude these days, I can't help but be slightly amused to see the nastiness of the Liberals duking it out publicly in Quebec:
“He [Dion] has no instinct,” former Liberal minister and political commentator Liza Frulla said in an interview.
“At a certain point, people feel it if there is something wrong, even if they don't know exactly what it is. But he, poor Stéphane, doesn't feel it.”
Ms. Frulla also said publicly what many Liberals are saying privately about Mr. Dion's lieutenant in Quebec, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette.
“She is abrasive and she is narcissistic,” Ms. Frulla said.
The former minister of Canadian Heritage argued that Ms. Hervieux-Payette is failing to connect with grassroots organizers.
“The more people know her, the more they run away. She has met a number of riding association presidents, and these people … are leaving,” Ms. Frulla said.
Abrasive and narcissistic?
This brings back memories of what life was like in the conservative parties in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Nary a day went by where some dust-up wasn't playing out in the national papers. I thought the Liberals were too disciplined a machine to descend into this kind of feuding, but apparently not. Says a lot about their current state.
Liza Frulla had been frequently talked about in Montreal political circles as a likely replacement for Paul Martin in Lasalle-Émard, but given the tone of these comments, that doesn't seem probable.
Charlie Rose put on an excellent tribute show on the life of William F. Buckley (first linked to in comments of a previous post) with guests Gary Wills, Mona Charen, Richard Brookhiser, Rich Lowry and Jeff Greenfield -- all of whom were discovered or mentored by Buckley.
Stories told over the last week by writers who knew Bill Buckley have had their effect on those who didn’t. Among the affected is a young and exceedingly bright conservative who raised with me the question of whether some of the pieces wouldn’t have been better off with more on the great man himself and a little less on the authors and what they said, discussed, or did with the great man.
The response I mustered was: “Hard to do.” Meaning that, in writing about Bill, in appreciating him, it is just hard to leave yourself out. Or what he did for you.
Buckley loved to help and promote those who shared his interests, beliefs and passions. I know some people like that, and they are among my favourite people, too.
In my tribute, I did not make mention of personal encounters with Buckley because I knew that the people who knew him well would have better tales to share. I did meet Buckley twice, but both meetings were very brief. The first time was at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where National Review was hosting a party in honour of Rep. Henry Hyde. The second was at a dinner for the American Spectator in Washington in 2004. He spoke at both events. I once wrote him a note asking if I could send him a copy of his book Let Us Talk of Many Things for him to autograph; he responded by sending me a signed free copy! He also wrote me a lovely note after I wrote about his retirement from NR in 2004, which I've kept in my scrapbook.
If anyone wants a collection of Buckley tributes for posterity, the magazine is selling copies of their special commemorative issue for $5 online.
Interesting by-election results. No other way to spin it: bad night for Stéphane Dion.
Bob Rae and Martha Hall Findlay won easily, as expected. But in the two ridings where the Conservatives put in effort, they won one and almost pulled off an incredible upset in Vancouver, losing to the Liberals by a mere 150 votes. This was a riding won by the Liberals' Stephen Owen by 12,000 votes in 2006 -- 18% points ahead of the Tories. For a riding even die-hard Grits call "the safest Liberal riding in B.C.," this is a very bad omen for the next election.
Byelections are supposed to be problematic for the governing party, not the opposition.
So, its a net gain of one seat for the Tories. Not a major change, but still a good result for them.
However, I expect the Liberals' performance in the House of Commons to improve dramatically with Rae and Hall Findlay around. Both are solid performers and will breathe new life into the Grits' Question Period routine, which has been rather lethargic of late and hasn't had a serious refreshing since the Chrétien era.
A number of people, including some close friends and family, were surprised to read my view of the Eliot Spitzer situation. I fear the intent of the post might have been misconstrued by some.
I did not mean in the slightest to infer that Spitzer's behaviour was in any way excusable. I agree he should have resigned. But why take pleasure in that? Why enjoy watching someone ruin their life?
I and many others were distraught at the amount of schadenfreude on display during Conrad Black's downfall. It was simply nauseating. With that episode behind us, why excuse it when it happens to someone else? It would be hypocritical to denounce this kind of behaviour when it happens to someone I like, then to excuse it when it happens to others.
With the way the Liberals have been acting, it's been difficult to find any real opposition to the Harper Tories. But alas, the search is over:
Canada is at risk of losing its international reputation due to the inaction of the Harper government, says former Conservative prime minister Joe Clark.
After delivering a speech to his alma mater, the University of Alberta, Mr. Clark said while the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is “efficient and focused,” he has problems with its purpose on some issues.
“My concerns are in large part about our role internationally, where I fear we are at risk of losing an enormous Canadian advantage and reputation simply because we are not refreshing our high reputation in the developing world.”
Mr. Clark, who was foreign affairs minister in Brian Mulroney's government from 1984-91, told the audience the problems facing the world involve conflict between people who come from different cultures and belief systems and yet have to live together.
He said Canada deals with that essential diversity better than any other country.
“We are trusted internationally, in a world where it's very important that someone is able to come in and draw others together,” said Mr. Clark.
But Mr. Harper's style is to emphasize differences, “a difficult and potentially dangerous course to follow,” Mr. Clark later told reporters.
Rather than taking principled stands on international issues, I guess Mr. Clark would have us go back to the days where we were praised by the dictators, terrorists and human rights abusers? Sounds like a plan.
UPDATE: Thanks to Gabby for pointing out Paul Wells' response, which is devastating:
It's just a fact that Harper managed to reconcile the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance memberships where Clark had been trying, with exceedingly modest results, for years. It's just a fact that Harper could have done so earlier and that the main obstacle to his success was Joe Clark. It's just a fact that when the two parties did replace themselves with a new unified party, the only ones who didn't join the spirit of reconciliation were the Clark faction of the Progressive Conservatives: Clark, Scott Brison, John Herron. And that only Clark was unwilling to reconcile with... the Liberals by joining them. The great conciliator of High River spent his last months in Parliament sitting alone as an independent. He did not wish it so and it's sad that it happened, but it did.
...
Clark never minded divisive policies if they would keep Alberta social conservatives out of his party. He loved all the policies Liberals loved (well, not all Liberals -- there is a social-conservative wing in that party too, and Clark spent his career well to their left) -- but wanting to be conciliatory does not produce reconciliation.
Call me contrarian on this, but I'm not jumping on the bash-Spitzer bandwagon. What has happened is a tragedy. His actions were a manifestation of the human failings we all inherently have in us. His mistake, which is causing this self-inflicted crisis to be further amplified, was the years he spent on a moral high-horse, out to destroy others with his anti-corporate crusading. If Spitzer had been a little less brazen, and taken a little less delight in ruining other people's lives, perhaps he'd be getting a bit more support from certain quarters now. He will likely have to resign, and he probably should, but to relish in the man's downfall is unseemly.
The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.
This may be true, but the question is how do you get Clinton to drop out? You can't. Forget the hard delegate numbers -- each candidate has a strong case here. Hillary will be able to say she won all the big, important states (and maybe the overall popular vote), and Barack can say he has the highest number of delegates.
Of the dozens of tributes paid to William F. Buckley, Jr. over the last week, this has so far been my favourite -- not only Charlie Rose's emotional farewell and admonition to cherish every day, but the content of Buckley's remarks about work and aging.
I hoped this day would never come, and didn't think it would.
Conrad Black is sitting in a jail cell.
It shouldn't have come to this, and the battle still isn't over. He didn't leave without a formidable parting shot, showing one last time the resolve and magnanimity he has demonstrated since the beginning of these travails.
There were media requests today, but I didn't do any. It wouldn't have been right.
