Tim Harper writes that the the parliamentary press gallery has always known that the prime minister has a hair trigger temper:
When Stephen Harper returned from political exile to lead the Canadian Alliance 12 years ago, a few of the more cynical members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery played a little game on the side.
We plotted how we could get a notoriously volatile Harper to “blow’’ at the mike on the opposition side of the House of Commons foyer.
Such was his reputation for a short fuse, a man who would not abide provocative or ill-informed questions from journalists, we thought we just had to wait.
Harper learned to control his temper in public. But in private it has always been a different matter. Tom Flanagan and Bruce Carson have recently revealed that behind closed doors Harper is known for his fits of rage:
Flanagan described Harper this way: “He can be suspicious, secretive, and vindictive, prone to sudden eruptions of white-hot rage over meaningless trivia, at other times falling into week-long depressions in which he is incapable of making decisions.’’
Now comes Bruce Carson, a former senior aide, who is making the media rounds while simultaneously promoting his new book, 14 Days, and awaiting a preliminary hearing into charges of influence-peddling. Carson is a convicted fraudster, but he did work alongside Harper as a senior adviser during their first minority government.
He also is talking about a man who was prone to temper tantrums, dressing down aides heatedly, swearing at them, but also getting as good as he gives.
Now, says Carson, the people who had the courage to stand up to Harper are all gone. There is no one to take him on; and he lives under the mistaken impression that he is a monarch. Like King George III, he doesn't understand why the colonials have revolted. And he is determined to teach them respect for the Crown.
4 comments:
I'll add the trailer Owen....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHNSAK8d3qc
Thanks for the clip, Anon. Precisely.
So I guess I am smelling a whiff of gunpowder, hmmm? or could it be a whiff of grapeshot even?
Seriously, that article was disturbing even for someone like me who is hardly unaware of these traits Harper has. It also though underscores my comment in an earlier thread about how far in and deep the bubble he is though, and why I am not necessarily convinced he thinks he needs to resign because of a possible impending defeat electorally a la Mulroney. He clearly thinks he is still the "master of his domain" and of all he sees, the "master strategist who plays chess while others play checkers" (a point I never agreed with, I always said he was a mediocre strategist though he was a sharp tactician, but those two qualities are not the same despite some folks thinking there is not much difference). This level of isolationism creates delusionary thinking above and beyond the usual political fantasy making, and it would appear Harper is completely caught in its web.
A sad time for this country, but on the "bright" side having Harper this far disconnected from reality making such bad decisions and picking such blatantly idiotic fights as he has lately does make it easier for those voters who don't pay as close attention as we political freaks do to see the reality and to decide enough is enough. People though Chretein was bad this way, but I wonder how many of them are looking back on the Cretch as being so much more open and honest with Canadians than what they have seen for the past eight years now. Harper has done more to turn Canada into a mockery of a first world free and open society than anyone once thought possible (well, some of us thought so, but then we were roundly mocked for it when we warned, and by that I do include the Libs of the day, they really did try to paint the truth about how dangerous Harper was, the "hidden agenda" was really there, we have seen what it truly was played out in front of us) in Canada. That "it can't happen here" syndrome really bit us hard on this one. The next election is truly our last gasp/chance at trying to recover the Canada generations of Canadians of all political stripes worked so hard to create, this abomination is not Canadian rooted in nature, it is a graft from the American far right extremist movement, and like any diseased limb beyond saving poisoning the rest of the body it needs to be amputated, in this case from the body politic itself. Not just removed from power, but from control of the CPC itself in my view.
I miss Tories, they at least still loved Canada and Canadian values, this monstrosity clearly by word and deed does not.
The Progressive Conservative Party had a noble tradition, Scotian. ]
To understand what it has become, we need only consider the chasm between Robert Stanfield and Stephen Harper.
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