Angry in the Great White North

Who needs friends when your enemies write stuff like this about you:

Stephen Harper is the most moral Canadian prime minister in Canadian history.

It is morality that motivates his stand against same-sex marriage and his support for the war in Afghanistan. It's morality that drives him to take on his Bay Street pals on the issue of income trusts.

If there were any doubt this prime minister is driven by morality rather than the almighty buck, his dealings with communist China should lay them to rest.

Harper has demanded, in public, the release of Huseyn Celil, a Canadian Uyghur now rotting in a Chinese cell, and turned a deaf ear to cries from Canadian business that his criticism of China's terrible record on human rights is alienating an important trading partner.

Compare this with the moral vacuum that is the Liberal Party:

Morality politics has had a dark side in the history of the Liberal party. In the 1930s, the Liberals under Mackenzie King remained completely silent on the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany.

Of all Western countries, Canada had the worst record on Jewish refugees. That was underlined by the famous "voyage of the damned," when the SS St. Louis, loaded with thousands of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, was turned away from the port of Montreal.

This was the playing out of moral politics of the worst kind: The Liberals were literally playing with people's lives.

If Harper's political morality separates him from tradition of "almighty dollar" diplomacy in this country, it certainly separates him from the neutrality of the Liberals towards the Nazis and, under Jean Chretien, the party's approach to China.

Now Zolf lets rip with what in Canada, and among Canada's lefties, ought to be the worst insult ever:

Harper is not a cynic in politics. He is a Christian moralist, first and foremost.

Christian principles? In Canada?

Please, impersonal-genericized-all-purpose-gender-neutral-deity-figure-or-abstract-concept, save us all!

Finally Zolf says what I've often said -- I would rather be friends with good-hearted people with differing political opinions than be surrounded by liars who pretend to agree with me on policy:

The moral approach will play well for him in the next election. Canada's one million Chinese Canadians and 500,000 Jews may just agree that his stance on human rights in China and Iran is both moral and good politics.

It will also help Harper maintain his Western and rural base: Exalting Canada's middle class as he has done is playing morality politics at its best. And refusing to let trade with China trump morality when it comes to criticizing Beijing's human rights abuses makes Harper look strong and decisive.

I don't share the prime minister's social conservatism or economic views, but I thoroughly prefer his gutsy stand on issues like China to Liberal gamesmanship and nuanced neutrality on human rights abuses — anytime, anyplace.

Anytime and anyplace. I wonder if Stephane Dion is going to move quickly on challenging Stephen Harper's hold as Canada's most moral prime minister. Despite what some people think, morality is neither an intellectual interesting but practically irrelevant social construct, nor is it old fashioned to the point of obsolescence.

It is a way of seeing the world that resonates with a lot of people. That includes Canadians on all points of the political spectrum.