Politics: Canada: Steven Harper's achievements take "two clans" further than they've been in decades: why's Nat Post grumpy?

Webpost Mistress, Canadianna, posts today her count of the achievements of the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Steven Harper. She does so in the face of the erstwhile conservative daily, National Post's grumpy extremist final two editorial paragraphs on Harper, editorializing about Harper's "glum." The thing is that Nat Post has an axe to grind, and I'm afraid they just may be up to their old tricks, coiling up to hoist on us (I mean on all Canadians) the likes of Tony Clement or, worst, Tom Long, now that the Nattos can't push Belinda Stronach (short of a major intervention by the Post's Liberal owners, the Asper family). Remember the fiasco of the Long candidacy? - the guy pushed so hard by Nat Post for leader of one of the pre-Harper parties? Now, there was a scary chap. And you can be sure that the NatPostos are designing another dodo to launch from a PR consultancy to push Harper out when the time comes. However, Harper has achieved some things for a new man in the House of Commons and as leader of the united official Opposition. The Liberals have worked hard to demonize him, but their grip on that program has weakened incrementally. Were the Liberals to go up against another designer product hatched out of NatPosts editorial offices, the Libs would demonize that fellow as well - he even may deserve it (we have to speculate given Nattos track record on forging candidates in a certain mold and trying to jettison social conservative issues in favour fiscal conservative rigours which often do not fit the population, where the social issues do - I say this contrary to the conventional wisdom, "wisdom" that Natto refries all too often. Now, it's getting rancid. Give Harper the credit he's due. Don't placate Glib Lib demonization, and don't pretend you've got just the candidate waiting anomymously in the wings, a sure-fire gladhander who won't get the same abrasive bull that Harper's gotten. Canadianna, partisan for Harper, as usual has the foresight to bring forthrightly to our attention just what Harper is doing and achieving as a leader - and she can and does quote lots from the NatPost editorial before the latter arrives sedately at its last two paragraphs.

Now, here's a comment I posted as an add-on comment to Canadianna's great blog, regarding her current Harper piece, with some extension and revision:

I think Steven Harper, and only he, had the gumption and the intelligence to put together the alternative to the Martin Bulldozer against the Traditional Legal Definition of Marriage. While I do disagree strongly with him, as a homo, that 2women intimate unions can be rendered as equivalent to 2men intimate unions (2women = 2men = 1woman1man ... where all the emphasis is on what's the same and the differences simply erased as non-existent, unimportant, and irrelevant, such is the deadly hand of the current schools of jurisprudence into the complexity and irreduciblity of the forms of human existences in society). There is a difference, and the law should not be formulated in a state of denial as to the differences between intimate unions of 2woman compared to those of two men. There should be separate hearings and studies for these two different kinds if they are to be officially recognized, and the rights and responsiblities of each when their unions are legally-recognized (not "civil unions," these are unions of two people excluding all others, with an intention of permanence). For the State, it's only a question of of stipulating rights and responsiblities, and these may/should differ; but the torpor of careful thawt regarding what would be wrawt, even under Steven, prevents real law-making. Nevertheless, Steven Harpers's move is brilliant because it forthrightly dares to preserve the uniqueness and difference of 1woman1man intimate unions in comparison to the other two kinds, and to give the former a privileged status for the purposes of the State in proferring recognition to all 3 kinds, while preserving the Traditional Legal Definiition of Marriage. [Contra GayandRight which denies the necessity of the legal recognition of the difference and buys-into a generic "same-sex" conceptualization intellectually, denying any specification of structural differences that should be the first principles of the laws involved; contra in principle as well to Harper's more welcome but still flawed version.] All of us, however, I would presume are in full agreement on this additional point: In all 3 kinds of intimate unions, the principle of the 1-to-1 rule is/must continue to be explicit, or we will soon have full-blown cases arguing on the same nonsensical basis as in the "same-sex marrriage" cases in the courts, that polygamous unions are appropriate as a matter of Right and are enshrined in the Charter (by aura, ambience, penumbra, and ... activist extension, of course - I expect nothing less from Canada's activist and stacked Supreme Court). Meantime, let's keep that 1-to-1 wall sturdy for all three kinds of soon-to-be-legally-recognized intimate unions! Harper's Marriage legislation will do that too. - Owlb

From the National Post editorial's final 2 paragraphs: ... [W]e imagine the trouble lies with how the message is being delivered. Mr. Harper is a glum, moody figure who has shown little enthusiasm for the rituals of mass-media politics and for the simple glad-handing expected of party chiefs. And instead of hiring communications staff who make up for these weaknesses, he has hired glum, clannish people who reinforce them.

Mr. Harper should think long and hard this summer about how badly he wants his job. Is he prepared, or even able, to do the things necessary to win at retail politics? If the answer is yes, Mr. Harper should return this fall a man transformed. If it is no, then he should consider bowing out.

National Post editorial going after "glum Harper" You can't permalink the Nat Post articles, so take a look soon before this editorial is disappeared.