2017: from celebrity selfie-prince to typical politician

[Gone_Fishin]

Rex Murphy: Justin Trudeau's year-long descent from celebrity selfie-prince to typical politician


2017 was not kind to the PM nor his government. And that last press conference? In Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him


Rex Murphy
December 29, 2017
6:12 PM EST





What’s true about first impressions — that you never get a second chance to make them — is logically symmetrical with the truth about last ones. No do-overs for them either, by definition. The last impression many Canadians have of Justin Trudeau in this year of Our Lord, 2017, was of him, shock-faced, rattled and babbling incoherently for a TV eternity of a minute and a half.

For all the sense he made, he could have been speaking Njerep ( I have a Masters in Google search) a language that survives only on the tongues of four people in the entire world, the youngest of whom is already 60.

It’s not because the question was tough, nor could it possibly have been unforeseen. He had been found guilty by the ethics commissioner of, not one, but four provisions of the conflict of interest law.

And, naturally, he was asked, how could a prime minister not have known that hopping on private helicopters on a “vacation” to the Aga Khan’s private island, with buddies and Liberal party personnel in tow, was not — to use a word much in favour at Wilfrid Laurier U — problematic?



This was not quantum mechanics. It was a hot issue for the PMO for all of 2017. Yet there he was in the Commons foyer, having been asked the inevitable question, looking gobsmacked and wounded, stammering like an old outboard motor on the last pint of gas, and stacking up enough non sequiturs and platitudes to fill a Costco warehouse. How bad was he? For that 90 seconds, he made George Bush look like the oratorical son of Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Thatcher.

That was the last impression for public view Mr. Trudeau left for the year now gliding into its final hours. In the Star Wars Yoda-tongue: Ill, it will bode for him. Not smart, it will seem.

The year 2017 was not kind to the PM nor his government. It began with his attempt to hide the Aga Khan vacation and ended with a demonstration of why he tried to hide it. The course of the year marked his descent from a celebrity selfie-prince to an all too typical politician, equipped with a genetic sense of entitlement and personal exceptionalism. The press, here and abroad, were no longer half-worshippers. His initiatives were seen by all critics, and some friends, too, as less policies than postures.

Next year's slogan will be more modest: Can I take a rain cheque on that?

On NAFTA, for example, the eerie attempt to inject his “feminist” proclivities and adoration of the green gods into trade negotiations did nothing for trade, greenism or feminism. He bungled mightily on trade with the Asian countries, too — not showing up, embarrassing Japan and angering the members of the TPP. The international press was starting to get a touch dismissive. Rightly so. After all, the “The world needs more Canada” sloganism, not showing up at all and ticking off a half-dozen world leaders was a curious choice. Next year’s slogan — “Can I take a rain cheque on that” — will be more modest.

His Number 2, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, made a perfect and protracted hash on the Trudeau tax policy — the one that was supposed to win the hearts of Mr. T’s beloved middle class. That ticked off almost everyone in the middle class or aspiring to it, from dentists to sales clerks. The finance minister’s campaign to sell the policy was a disaster, the climactic moment of which came with having the minister himself being, like his boss, under investigation for conflict of interest from the ethics commissioner.

snip

The most sensitive cabinet position, the minister for disabled persons, was filled by the most insensitive person in the cabinet, Kent Hehr — a politician in the Don Rickles mode.

The MMIW inquiry is on yet another reset. The Energy East pipeline was, naturally, cancelled — another sacrifice to Mr. Trudeau’s woeful attachment to the ignis fatuus of global warming.

Meantime, south of us, the Trump kingdom is both more successful in reducing the dreaded carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously leading a revival in the U.S. energy industry and putting a shredder to the EPA’s cat’s cradle of over-reaching regulations. And Trump has just passed a monumental change in the U.S. tax code, which will inevitably — just as his energy policies — place Canada at a massive industrial and economic disadvantage.

And so Mr. Trudeau leaves this year with a bundle of negotiations unsettled, wounded ministers, pledges undelivered, in violation of the law governing conflict of interest, at odds with the UN economy, and no single major policy achievement. He caps that with that parting press conference horror, signalling a prime minister struggling, anxious and incoherent — an image which, if it takes, will be fatal for an administration that has made the prime minister’s image its only ace. Much like the Goulds, only in reverse.

A bad year, it was.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-mur ... politician

[Queen K]

Well things can only look up in 2018 right?

[sobrohusfat]

Get rid we must !


it - let Rex have a go

[Ka-El]

Well things can only look up in 2018 right?

Trudeau has truly been a disappointment, and we have to hope he is going to turns things around for his government before the next election. He has time and could still accomplish a good deal if he got to it. If he doesn't do anything observable and measureable for the economy and middle class (where I suspect most of us swing voters are) before then, this Liberal government could be short-lived - and the options available to us right now definitely not the best we have had.

[Queen K]

Well things can only look up in 2018 right?

Trudeau has truly been a disappointment, and we have to hope he is going to turns things around for his government before the next election. He has time and could still accomplish a good deal if he got to it. If he doesn't do anything observable and measureable for the economy and middle class (where I suspect most of us swing voters are) before then, this Liberal government could be short-lived - and the options available to us right now definitely not the best we have had.

Hence my post. ^^^

Only you used more words.

[JLives]

*yawn* We already know you hate Trudeau on a personal level. Save yourself some typing next time.