“Thinking about the old Ignatieff” –Mark Steyn

I must be getting more conservative (small “c” please) in my senior years, because I find myself agreeing with Mark Steyn on several issues, and I support his battle with the “Human Rights Commission”. Perhaps it is from reading Tarek Fatah’s “Chasing a Mirage”, or it could be from reading Ezra Levant’s “Shakedown”, with his paean to Steyn’s struggles.

Whichever, I think Steyn has got it right regarding Iggy’s trials and tribulations in the Coliseum or Canadian politics. Ignatief is an erudite and thoughtful person; his writings are intelligent and profound. Not so his stammering political pronouncements. Pace his erudition, Michael Ignatieff is to political mud wrestling as a fish is to dry land –trashing around trying to find his breath.
In today’s political environment, politics and intelligence is an oxymoron, and the politicians bend and sway with the winds of the latest opinion surveys. Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying “the government you elect is the government you deserve”. No politician ever went wrong underestimating the average intelligence of the electorate. As your letter writer Mary Davies of Mississauga so accurately and succinctly put it “A good democracy requires both good citizens and good governments”. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have either.