"Stick a fork in Dion, he's done"

Ouch... that's the title of an article by Michael Den Tandt in today's Owen Sound Sun Times.

(for the record, I dislike how the author begins by welcoming Dion "to Hell"... of course, theologically, and humourously, I'll say to the author "You don't know what you speak about"... because the reality of Hell is infintely worse than anything Dion is presently facing... just so there's no confusion)

The key portion...

Here's the poison: The decision to pan the throne speech virtually in its entirety, then concoct a grab-bag of exquisitely nuanced excuses for passing it, feeds directly into Dion's greatest political liability - the perception that he's weak. In chess they call this a fork. Move one way, you lose your rook. Move the other way, you lose your queen. Either way you lose. Dion is well and truly forked.

In Quebec, some voters dislike him because of a perception that he is arrogant, aloof and out of touch with ordinary folk. He speaks like a Frenchman - a testament to his French mother. But that doesn't play well in the Saguenay. Other Quebecers tar him, unfairly, as a traitor, because of his authorship of the Clarity Act. Still others continue to mistrust the Liberals because of the sponsorship scandal.

In Ontario Dion began with a reputation as a smart, honest and hardworking minister. Despite his gawkiness and heavily accented English, he was known as a man of conviction. Journalists who remembered his fight with Quebec separatists in the 1990s referred to him as having a "spine of steel."

Then came the Harper strategy, taken directly from the Brian Mulroney play book, of seeking a majority through Quebec. First Harper learned to speak French better than any other recent prime minister, including the francophone Jean Chretien. Then he declared Quebec a "nation." Then he struck a back-room alliance with Mario Dumont's soft-nationalist, centre-right Action Democratique. Taken together, it worked.

This put the Liberals in severe need of a wedge issue for Quebec. They seized on the most obvious one, the Afghan mission. Polls showed Quebecers overwhelmingly opposed the deployment. Overnight the Liberals, who conceived and launched the mission, transformed themselves into its harshest critics. Trouble is, that hasn't worked. Liberal fortunes in Quebec have only worsened. Has anyone in the Liberal brain trust considered that some Quebecers' interest in and support for the mission may actually increase because the Valcartier, Que.-based Vandoos are over there now? It doesn't seem so.

Meantime the various Liberal flip-flops on Afghanistan have sewn confusion in Ontario and in the West. Dion says one thing, Foreign affairs critic Bob Rae says another, Defence Critic Denis Coderre says something else. Do they want our troops to stay and finish what they began or do they want to pull them out? Nobody knows. In Dion's speech to Parliament Wednesday he came up with yet another nuance: An extended mission focused on training Afghan security forces would be "acceptable." Um, Stephane, that's what the mission is focused on now. Does this mean you support it again?

Dion has made his choice. He now faces an endless succession of confidence votes. In each case Harper will press legislation inimical to Liberal principles and dare Dion to call him out. With each new concession Harper will look stronger and Dion weaker. If Dion pulls the trigger, he loses. If he waits, he loses. In effect Stephen Harper has just maneuvered himself into a majority in all but name.

That makes Dion many things. Unlucky? Doomed? You be the judge. Savvy, in my view, doesn't make the list.

Michael Den Tandt is editor of the Sun Times in Owen Sound and a national affairs columnist for Osprey Media. Contact mdentandt@thesuntimes.ca