End our national nightmare now

Dear fellow Canucks,
I know there is a distracting spectacle south of the border what with the minority elitist who was raised by a single mother on foodstamps running against the son-and-grandson-of-admirals, 11-house owning everyman for leader of the pack and all, and that whole global financial meltdown thing happenning, but we have an election going on too. I read the polls every day and I have to ask-- what the hell is wrong with you people?

Watching things in the Excited States over the last eight years, we've all seen what happens when you put a bunch of proudly ignorant neoconservative dingbats in charge for an extended period. Given Stephen Harper's propensity to crib from the Republican playbook, do you really think its a good idea to give him a majority? Really?

Aside from the apology for the Residential School tragedy, name one thing he's done right in the last two years, name one promise he's kept -- no, really, I'll wait, you go ahead and google around and tell me all about his successes with the nuclear safety watchdog, with the Arar affair, with ongoing, neverending war in Afghanistan, his environmental record --- and let's not forget about his insatiable hunger for the flesh of innocent children. The more you look, the more reasons you'll find to dump this chump.

The most recent scandal over bad meat has Tory fingerprints all over it, but the media seems more concerned about a few tasteless jokes by the minister in charge rather than his removal of inspectors from meat plants.

Recently he's been beating the usual conservative drum about "getting tough on crime" by sending 14-year-olds to prison for life, except in Quebec. I've addressed this kind of brainless pandering before. It's all part of the usual conservative obsession with talking tough and striking macho poses. A key element of right-wing politics is the notion of a "strong" leader who will "act decisively." Yes, well, we can see how that has worked out in the past for Germany, Italy and Spain and how it is working out now for the United States. Strength and resolution are all well and good, but if you make stupid, wrongheaded or just plain evil decisions and then stick to them in the face of all evidence, that doesn't make you a maverick or strong leader, it puts you somewhere on the spectrum between stubborn fool and diabolical meglomaniac.

I know Stephen Dion is not Pierre Trudeau and Jack Layton is no Tommy Douglas, but for the love of Lester Pearson, Maurice Richard and Laura Secord -- would you all just pick one of the two and stop Dead-Eyes from getting re-elected by dividing and conquering yet again?

(crossposted from the Woodshed)