One of the greatest elements of leadership is courage

And courage rises from honesty. There are times when honesty is the least desirable of all possible expedients, but it leaves nothing open to question.

I teach this stuff.

I train young officers to face their fears, to overcome adversity, to believe in themselves. From that I hope they rely on their honesty to assess others, to assess their situation and, above all, to assess themselves.

So, when Bob Rae, for whom I held no particular respect, stands before parliament and makes an honest apology, I believe the man has personal courage.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae told a stunned House of Commons that one of his staffers was responsible for creating the Vikileaks30 Twitter account that circulated alleged details of Toews' divorce.

Rae said the offending staffer — later identified as Adam Carroll — had resigned, and the leader extended a full apology to Toews.

"I discussed the matter with that individual this morning. He offered his resignation and I've accepted his resignation," Rae told the Commons. "And I want to offer to the minister my personal apology to him for the conduct of the member of my staff.

I despise all politicians. To me, they are all the scum of the earth. They have let me down, lied, cheated and dodged in the name of keeping their jobs. Every one of them is little more than a bad example of human behaviour. 

In this case however, I'm willing to feed a bit of extra line. It has been so long since I saw an act which casts this country's parliament in honourable light that I thought it had passed from existence in my lifetime.

What Bob Rae did took personal courage. As the leader he explained as much as was necessary and then told the offended party that he was taking the blame and personally providing the apology.

In contrast, we get this from the prime minister.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is deflecting calls for an independent probe into alleged dirty tricks in the last federal election, telling opposition MPs to take their concerns to Elections Canada.

 No. Harper can take them to the mirror. And we can safely hold him up to a person with real leadership qualities. 

Bob Rae has nothing to back down from. Harper has nowhere to go.

Firm date

Feb 22, 2008 : Globe and Mail

"The Conservative government has proposed a firm date of July, 2011, for Canadian troops to withdraw from southern Afghanistan.

"It would be churlish for anyone to suggest that the government has not come a long way," Bob Rae said. Mr. Rae said the important point is that the government agreed to accept a firm end date ... and adopting the Liberal wording on changing the focus of the mission to training Afghan forces.

The Tory motion adopted almost all of the wording of a motion proposed by Mr. Dion on Feb. 12, but it deleted the Liberals' demands that the Canadian Forces refuse to transfer detainees to Afghan authorities."

Nov 19, 2010 : Ottawa Citizen

"Canada's end date of March 2014 for a training mission in Afghanistan is firm despite NATO's plan to continue non-combat operations there, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Friday.

"March of 2014 is when we will be leaving," Cannon said at a news conference."

This time Bob Rae brokered the Lib/Con deal and said we didn't really need a vote on it.

As to the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities entirely funded by the CIA - an issue so explosive Steve shut down Parliament rather than face an investigation into it just under a year ago - well, no one mentions that any more but Laurie Hawn is working on it.

Extending the quagmire

NDP Paul Dewar says extending the Afghan mission past 2011 to 2014 requires a vote in Parliament.

Lib Bob Rae says : "In principle I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary."

Steve says I wasn't gonna ask you anyway.