Stephen Harper, Andrew Cohen writes, hasn't changed. Even though he
has been out of office for four-and-a-half years, but he can still draw a crowd of conservatives and a chorus of critics. And nurse a hell of a grudge.
No one says former Canadian prime ministers must gently fade away, once the way of American presidents. What we do expect, though, is a measure of honesty, generosity and self-reflection.
Harper offers none of that. He is elder but no statesman; he has second thoughts without sobriety. He cannot help himself.
An interview Harper did with the American conservative talk show host Dennis Prager has surfaced after two years. And it reveals that Harper is as mean and nasty as ever:
Blaming the liberal media conspiring to defeat him in 2015 – his big allegation – is so silly that even Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s former head of communication, calls it “crap.”
No right-wing media in Canada? Has he checked the Globe and Mail, which endorsed his party, or the editorial pages of Postmedia News? Has he read John Ibbitson’s sympathetic biography? Didn’t Mike Duffy, as a broadcaster, destroy Stéphane Dion in a television interview in 2008?
Collusion? I must have missed the midnight conclaves of the College of Columnists, scheming “to bring down” the Conservatives (as Val Sears of the Toronto Star famously declared boarding John Diefenbaker’s campaign plane in 1962).
Who needed collusion when Harper was destroying himself in 2015 with his “snitch lines” and anti-immigration tropes? Which party had the most money and the advantage of government and then foolishly set an election date two-and-a-half months away, certain that a long campaign would undo the callow Justin Trudeau?
Perhaps it all goes back to his relationship with his mother:
He reveals, for example, that his mother never said anything to him “remotely praiseworthy”. After he became prime minister, she allowed: “Well, you’ve done well for yourself.”
That may explain his gnarled, flinty and vindictive public persona in 10 years in office. By 2015, Canadians had enough of his distemper, so acute that he shocked a visiting foreign leader with his burning contempt for the opposition.
In the Prager interview, Harper notes that no Canadian university had given him an honorary degree, even though “I was one of the best-educated prime ministers the country ever had.”
Does that sound like sour grapes? You bet. We should all be grateful that he's not in office now.
Image: The Rayfield
12 comments:
!?
The cons were led by an ugly Canadian under Harper, now they're led by an ugly American under Scheer.
Note the similarities between Harper and Trump: distant mother, narcissistic need to dominate, constant lying, lack of empathy, cowardice, inability to take responsibility, belief that the role of the media is to provide Con propaganda, and so on. The GOP must have looked at the Harper prototype and said, "hold my beer!"
What I want to know is who surfaced this two-year-old interview and why?
Cap
Both men are made of the same stuff, !?, regardless of their declared citizenship.
Good question, Cap. Could it have something to do with the Conservative leadership race?
As a country, we are well-rid of Harper, Owen. End of story.
I agree, Lorne. May his return to private life be eternal.
I read yesterday that all US citizens get a$1200 cheque (check) for covid19 relief regardless of where they live. I wonder what Scheer will do with his money? Keep it? Send it back? Keeping it will look pretty bad.
GDN
Surely he can't blame a media that he refused to talk to. Am I the only one that remembers his contempt for everyone and his censoring all his cabinet from doing interviews. Oh except his pit bull Baird foaming at the mouth once in a while.Does anyone remember when he left the elder on a hunger strike in her Tee Pee in the wintery cold as he and his "pretty" hustled off for Christmas break? The comparison to the nut job south of the border is uncanny.My only regret is that I will never get to meet him in public to tell him what I really think. Hey Steve! Don't let the door hit you in the ass as you leave your closet, you coward. Sheesh!
Harper seems to believe that he has been grossly misunderstood by everyone, zoombats. The truth is that Canadians became very familiar with the man -- and their growing contempt for him led to his defeat.
During the campaign, GDN, Scheer lept calling Trudeau a "fraud." Now he's accusing Trudeau of corruption. The potential cheque from the Congress simply underscores Scheer's hypocrisy.
Best educated? A master's degree in economics awarded a guy who never practiced in that field? Odd how most of Canada's great prime ministers were economists. What they weren't? They were lawyers, usually with demonstrated distinction in their fields. I can't think of one of those stalwarts whose job career was limited to working the mail room of an oil company.
What I found interesting in this column is that Harper, like Trump, craved the withheld approval of their mothers. Small wonder they're both bent.
I found that detail particularly interesting, too, Mound. Like the guy south of the border, Harper enjoys staring at his navel.
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