Two titans, bad blood, and a growing rift that threatens to divide the Conservative party
The thing about the fight that Stephen Harper has managed to pick with Brian Mulroney, the paradox that elevates it beyond a few days' bad headlines into the sort of event that makes party members wonder about the boss's judgment, is that Harper was only doing what he has always done to win.
For as long as he has been in politics, Harper has returned, at important moments, to a few favourite techniques to manage the public agenda. Selective leaks to reporters. Titillating stories custom-designed to distract the press and public from weightier events. Wedge issues chosen with care to turn ally against ally.
It's what he does. Except he used to do it to his opponents.
This time he did it to Mulroney"”the patriarch of one of Harper Conservatism's constituent groups and a still-formidable political street fighter who, even now, probably has more real, call-him-up-on-his-birthday friends in the party Harper leads than Harper does.
It was Harper's staff, acting on his behalf for days on end, who leaked word to reporters recently that Mulroney had cut his links to the party. With the Oliphant commission into Mulroney's ties with Karlheinz Schreiber looming, it was a transparent bid to put space between this Prime Minister and his predecessor. Mulroney and his loyalists took the hint and the insult and pushed back"”hard. Pretty soon, two decades' worth of bad blood was on public display. And Harper, who could use some good luck these days, had some of the other kind on his hands.
Brian Mulroney was making people hurt for crossing him when Stephen Harper was still in short pants. So one question Ottawa Conservatives were asking, when the bizarre two-week debate over Mulroney's membership status finally calmed down, was: what on earth got into Harper?
Robin Sears is no Conservative. He's a long-time New Democrat who served as Bob Rae's chief of staff when Rae was Ontario's premier. But Sears does act as Mulroney's paid spokesman, a position that has kept him busy while the Oliphant commission prepared to investigate Mulroney's dealings with Schreiber. Here's what Sears makes of the Mulroney membership kerfuffle. First, "what should have been a very positive week for the government,"� because Harper was attending a bunch of blue-chip summits overseas, "hasn't been."�
"Secondly, Mr. Mulroney's mandate, legacy and record of achievement has been revived in a mostly positive manner, at a time when one couldn't have anticipated that.
"From the perspective of the world beyond, it provides a rather unhelpful glimpse into how fragile the bonds of partisan loyalty remain within the Conservative party."�
When Canadian conservatives set aside their differences to build broad coalitions, they prosper and govern. One measure of the difficulty of that task is that they have so rarely governed. In the past half-century, only Harper, Mulroney and John Diefenbaker have won more than one national election. For much of that time Mulroney and Harper have incarnated, sometimes in the breach, the importance of conservative loyalty. When they were on the same side, Conservatives were in power. When they weren't, they weren't.
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Let us watch what we want
“The man has a pettiness and credibility problem that is so large it is tough for voters to support him even when he does thngs that may benefit their region or may benefit them personally.”
Ouch! History is cruel! Live by your words, die by your words. Could this be Macbeth all over again [ yet again]? Not so good King Brian, is being pushed into his grave by the userper MacHarper. And who brings Birnam wood to 24 Sussex? MacHarper’s nemisis -Ignatieff - that can’t be right, i’m sure there weren’t any bloody Russian Counts in the original. Stil this is Canada, we’ll have to extemporize, in the best traditions of multi-culturalism.
Absolutely terrific article. The last paragraph is perfect.
I must say I’m surprised that Mulroney’s rolodex is so bulletproof. The guy annihilates his own party and is now found to have taken huge sums of cash from the sketchiest man in Bavaria. But he’s still got tons of friends? What does it take in this country for shame to kick in?
Whatever transpires between Harper and Mulroney, and no matter what Mulroney’s legacy, the one thing that will alway stay with me is, a former prime minister of Canada met with a shady German arms dealer in a hotel room and took envelopes stuffed with money. That’s what shady characters in movies and people on the take do…and that’s what Brian Mulroney did. No matter how skillfully he covered his tracks, what is fact is that he took money and lied about it. He may not have directly used the PMO on behalf of Karlheinz while he was PM. But he used the power and influence that comes with being PM for less than prime ministerial matters. That’s how he should be remembered.
Right you are! And what are we focussing on? You’ve put in a nutshell why the public at large has long ago passed judgement on Brian Mulroney.
“Brian Mulroney was making people hurt for crossing him when Stephen Harper was still in short pants.”
Heh.
[...] Ambassador to the U.S.“frustrated” by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Harper’s fight with Mulroney may be his undoing Surprise RCMP apology issued about Dziekanski’s death What’s wrong with our [...]
the other thing that bugged me here is at the very end. it’s `disarming’ that Mulroney’s own spokesman says he doesn’t know if the guy is a member of the party anymore? more like the usual weaselly crap and you let him get away with it. In contrast to that old redneck Don Plett who tells the truth. What about his comments is `clear as mud’?
Lies, from start to finish, written by longtime CSIS informer and traitor Paul Wells.
Licky boom-boom down!
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