NP: "How much longer will Liberal MPs endure this shame?"

There's only one way to describe Jonathan Kay's editorial post on Stephane Dion this afternoon... ouch.

National Post editorial on Stéphane Dion: "How much longer will Liberal MPs endure this shame?"

We could never have imagined the embarrassment that Stéphane Dion and his Liberals would be willing to endure just to avoid an election. But the spectre Wednesday of the Liberals rising en masse in the House of Commons to protect a Tory immigration bill they had implied was racist was a new low in self-inflicted humiliation even for them. It would be fair to say that whatever Mr. Dion’s bumbling, hypocritical caucus has become, it is not an Opposition.

[...]

Wednesday’s vote was double proof of how desperate the Liberals are to avoid a general election at a time when their leader is weak, their fundraising is non-existent, and their popularity in Quebec is in freefall. Not only did they vote against their core policy of the past 30 years, they risked having their vote seen by their immigrant supporters as a slap in the face after a generation of slavish pandering.

There have now been four major votes in Parliament this year in which the Liberals have contrived to keep the Tories in power — the Afghan mission, the Tories’ law-and-order bill, the budget, and now immigration. In each case, the Liberals have vehemently opposed the bill in question, and threatened an election over it, and in each case they have in the end tucked their tails between their legs and whimperingly supported the government.

How much longer will Liberal MPs endure this shame? And how much longer will even core Liberal supporters tolerate a party that refuses to oppose, even when it is clearly against the government’s major policies?

We’ll find out the next time we go to the polls — whenever that happens.