Kettle calls pot black and other Harper follies.

So we have Stephen Harper saying that Gilles Duceppe is using the troops in Afghanistan for political ends after Duceppe threatened to pull the plug on the Tory government. After all, it's only Stephen Harper who can threaten elections and use our troops in Afghanistan for political ends. The depths of hypocrisy that Harper will stoop never ceases to amaze me. Harper spends much of the summer and fall making everything a confidence issue, daring the opposition to topple his government. Now, when they begin to call his bluff, Harper gets all hurt and starts name calling. Not to mention how Harper and his merry band would use the troops in Afghanistan in an attempt to silence critics of their policy there.

Hating the actions of another but then doing the self-same thing seems to be the modus-operandi of the Tories. Dion's dual citizenship, the Bloc threatening to force a non-confidence vote or using Canada's soldiers for political gain; all things the Tories and their media supporters have used against the opposition parties, and all things the Tories (and their supporters) are guilty of themselves. It's as if something is only bad if a non-Tory does it. Hypocrisy in action. For a party that supposedly believes in "principled stands", they're not very good at them.

Continuing on, Harper has stated that he's going to set up some form of "consultation" for selecting senators. From what the media is reporting, Harper wants to have some form of vote which would "advise" the Prime Minister on who to pick as senators. There is some buzz out there in the blogosphere about this, but without a look at the legislation there's really nothing but questions. For example, is the "advice" binding? Would Harper appoint a Liberal if that's what the advice from the people said, or would he just pick the person that he wanted anyways. Given how his party seems to select candidates, I don't have a lot of confidence on Harper listening to the will of the people in any political decision. Add to the mix that whatever system Harper comes up with, it's simply an act of parliament and can be changed or repealed by any other act of Parliament and quite possibly wouldn't survive his government.

It seems to me that Harper is busily trying to appeal to his core supporters, which really won't help him much in the next election. Though it will help him solidify the support of those who would support him regardless of what he does, it's not going to win favours with the rest of the electorate. Harper and his inner circle seem to think that what the country wants is radical neo-con thinking. The problem with this is that is not what the country wants. Heck, the recent Alberta Tory leadership race shows that it's not even what a majority of Alberta Tories want. So it's a bit of a mystery that a man who wants a majority seems to be doing everything to prevent that from happening. Now that the Liberals have a leader and that leader tends to the political center-left, Harper will have quite the fight at the next election. Especially since Harper has problems playing the moderate.

So we have the start of the Conservative implode. They are lashing out at the opposition for doing the same things that they themselves are doing. They are starting their election campaign in the style of the Bush Republicans, apparently ignorant of the results that strategy got the GOP south of the border. I suspect that this strategy will have even worse results for the Tories, especially if Dion can avoid any serious gaffs in the next few weeks. As it stands, the opposition has everything to gain from an election call sooner than later, though if the Tories can't get their act together, time is much more the neo-con enemy. We shall see what the coming weeks bring, but I suspect that the Bloc and the Liberals are itching to go to the polls and it wouldn't surprise me if we were in a federal election campaign by February.