I don't play baseball

.... but the one thing I know about baseball is you don't swing at a pitch in the dirt. That's exactly what Iggy did today when he tried to defend his international career. The Conservative attack ads are obviously getting under his skin and today he tried to defend against them. Big mistake Iggy. Keep making that kind of amateur mistake and you will have an even shorter career than the ill fated Steffie Ding Dong that you replaced. More and more it looks like Harper is headed for a majority if he can just keep some of the loose cannons in his cabinet under control.

I don't normally watch Question Period on TV. I've seen the real thing in Ottawa and been thoroughly underwhelmed if not disgusted. However I couldn't resist watching the opening skirmish today and it was worthwhile. Ignatieff was as ineffectual as usual, yammering on about our international commitments but the real prize of the day was Bob Rae. American readers will need a little context to understand the exchange that happened between Red Bob & the Prime Minister. Bob was the NDP (Socialist) premier of Ontario for close to 5 years. Later in life he had a road to Damascus experience and realized that he was in fact a Liberal. Most of us on the right would say that it is hard to tell the difference between a Lib and a Socialist but that's a subject for another day. Bob took a run at the Liberal leadership which ultimately elected Steffie Ding Dong. When Steffie's political career went into the dumper Red Bob looked set to take a serious run at the leadership but was usurped by the return to Canada of Michael Ignatieff. In the interest of getting Steffie out of the way as quickly as possible Michael and Bob hatched a plot to make Iggy the leader and give Bob lots of exposure.

So following Iggy's ineffectual questions to the Prime Minister, here comes Bob with his first question referring to the attack ads that some US media have been running about the Canadian healthcare system. "What does the Prime Minister think about the Canadian healthcare system." Answer: "I believe wholeheartedly in it and it is in fact the only system that my family has ever used or intends to use." And he sat down. Followup: "So can we expect the government of Canada to mount an advertising campaign to defend the Canadian system against the unfair right wing ads running in the U.S.?" The P.M. took a little longer on this answer, pointing out that the Americans are quite capable of making their own decisions vis healthcare and probably don't give a damn what we think about our system but his conclusion was priceless. "The Canadian healthcare system will likely survive attacks by right wing commentators in the U.S. in the same manner it survived attacks by socialist incompetents in Ontario."

I love it - I just by god love it.