Angry in the Great White North

A lame duck is an elected official who is reaching the end of his run of office.  He has little power, and others have no incentive to cooperate with him.

Usually, the lame duck knows he's a lame duck, and so avoid potentially humiliating showdowns that he knows he can't win.  On the other hand, if he doesn't realize he's a lame duck, he'll walk right into a fight and not realize he's already lost...

Is Michael Ignatieff the lame duck leader of the Liberal Party?  Shockingly, I think he might very well be.  And only four months after the coronation of this crypto-conservative as Liberal Party leader in an uncontested leadership race!

But the trouble in Outremont points to labelling Ignatieff as a lame duck.  Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant Denis Coderre is blocking any attempt by former Liberal justice minister Martin Cauchon to run in Outremont.  Cauchon represented that riding for over a decade, and the Liberals are desperate to take the riding back from the NDP in the next election.  Instead of Cauchon, Coderre has picked his favourite, politically untested business woman Nathalie le Prohon, to go up against veteran Thomas Mulcair of the NDP.  Coderre has already decided to have Michael Ignatieff appoint her to the role of candidate, no nomination contest required.

Unseemly, perhaps, but the shocking thing is that we all know about this.  Not a single person in this drama has shown the slightest bit of respect for Michael Ignatieff.  Michael Ignatieff made the decision to do what Denis Coderre told him to do, but no one cares.

They're all complaining bitterly...in public!

Can there be any more evidence that no one in the Liberal Party sees Michael Ignatieff as a real leader?

But let's go through the list of the main players, as well as some sitting MPs who are blabbing all over the place on this:

Martin Cauchon:

Not so fast, said Cauchon, it's my seat and I want it back. When he got nowhere with Coderre, he took his case public, with his friends telling the media he was the local riding association's choice.

Denis Coderre:

Denis Coderre, Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant, told a Montreal radio station Wednesday that Le Prohon will be the candidate in Outremont. But he suggested the party would work with Cauchon if he wants to run elsewhere - something Cauchon's allies believe is unlikely.

Bob Rae:

Now Bob Rae, Iggy's lifelong friend and erstwhile leadership rival, has jumped into the fray, saying "room must be found" for Cauchon. "Martin Cauchon was an outstanding minister of justice and has been a fighter for Liberal values all his political life," Rae told Joan Bryden of The Canadian Press, who has the Liberal caucus wired for sound.

Bernard Patry:

"For me, the best candidate to win should get the riding," Quebec MP Bernard Patry said. "Mr. Cauchon knows the riding, I have no clue if Madame Le Prohon knows the riding."

Alexandra Mendes:

Quebec MP Alexandra Mendes noted: "Mr. Cauchon has proven his mettle. He has nothing to prove. The party should make Mr. Cauchon very welcome and give him whatever chance he needs to help us form the government."

Raymonde Falco:

"He [Ignatieff] does have another possibility according to the constitution. The possibility of the two having a race for the riding," [Quebec Liberal MP] Folco said.

Massimo Pacetti:

"I'm a believer in a nomination contest," said [Quebec Liberal MP] Pacetti. "I think it should have been an open battle."

This doesn't include all the pundits and bloggers weighing in too.

All of it in public.

Does anyone care what Michael Ignatieff can do to them as punishment for speaking out in public against a firm decision he has made?

Apparently not.  To have no fear of contradicting the leader, after he has made his final decision on a subject, is a defining property of a lame duck.

But I think Michael Ignatieff has a way out of this.  When an unnamed Liberal went to the press with his criticisms of Michael Ignatieff, Warren Kinsella made this promise:

I intend to find out who you are, little Hill Times source weasel, and I intend to take a chainsaw to your political ambitions, however modest they may be.

I'm going to defend Iggy as vigorously as I defended JC. And, moreover, I'm pretty good at finding people, when I'm focussed.

At the risk of not taking Warren Kinsella seriously, it's one thing to make a threat like this against an unknown target.  We'll never know if you were able to follow through.  But look at this list: Martin Cauchon, Bob Rae, Bernard Patry, Alexandra Mendes, Raymonde Falco, Massimo Pacetti.

Each one of these people have deliberately and publicly undermined Michael Ignatieff by criticizing his decision and demanding that it be reversed or otherwise changed in a significant way.

Even Denis Coderre could be added to the list if you think to blame him for being so ham-fisted as to have created this mess in the first place.

If one or two of these people were made examples of, MIchael Ignatieff could shake off this lame duck label.

So, where's the chainsaw?  There's Bob Rae telling one and all what Michael Ignatieff must do.  I thought Michael Ignatieff was the leader.  How is it that Bob Rae thinks he can go to the media and announce what Michael Ignatieff must do?

How is it that Bob Rae's not-so-modest political ambitions aren't being subjected to the chainsaw?  A supporter of Michael Ignatieff would need little convincing to agree that Bob Rae needs to be cut down to size.

The best part is that Warren Kinsella doesn't need to be all that focussed if he decides to find Bob Rae and introduce Rae to the ambition-chopping chainsaw.

Bob Rae is probably at Stornaway, measuring the windows for curtains.

See, that's another thing about lame ducks.  You usually already know who the successor is going to be.

Update: Michael Ignatieff does not end the Outremont squabble:

Former Liberal justice minister Martin Cauchon will get the chance to make a political comeback in his old riding after all.

Party insiders say Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has decided to allow an open nomination contest in the prized Montreal riding of Outremont.

Open?  Hardly.  First, Nathalie Le Prohon is being shuffled off to the Bloc-held riding of Jeanne-Le Ber.  So the nomination is only open if anyone dares run against Martin Cauchon after all this sound and fury.

Denis Coderre has been damaged politically, perhaps beyond his ability to recover.  By all accounts, he has made lots of enemies within the Quebec Liberal establishment.  Now Michael Ignatieff has utterly undercut Coderre, leaving him to face the enemies he had made alone. 

This goes much farther than Denis Coderre reaping what he has sown.  Any candidate appointed by Michael Ignatieff had better hope there is no hue and cry raised, because Michael Ignatieff has shown he is willing to fold like a cheap suit if the it represents the easy way to shut down a controversy.  And for Michael Ignatieff's supporters, who among them is not looking at what happened to Coderre and wondering which of them will stake out a position with Ignatieff's support, just to find themselves seeing Ignatieff take sides with their opponents.

I swear, sometimes I think Michael Ignatieff is his own worst enemy.