Angry in the Great White North

Jason Cherniak is feeling his oats today. In both senses of the phrase. Either that, or the stress has caused his brain to break.

Jason has had it with the malcontents in the Liberal Party, and has reached the end of his rope:

This week, we are learning that it has also led otherwise intelligent people to do really stupid things because they believe that they are smarter than everybody else.

Hey, isn't that the definition of a liberal? Someone who thinks he's smarter than everybody else?

Meanwhile, the leader had to take responsibility for the public face. He put his team together and he started getting the ball rolling. Everything wasn't perfect, but by the end of the summer we were tied with Stephen Harper after he had been PM for a year and a half. Things were going well.

Then we saw a report of anonymous people complaining that Michael Ignatieff's team had torpedoed a by-election in Quebec. Who were these people? I don't know. What I do know is that those people really screwed the pooch. They questioned the loyalty of just under half the Liberal Party and accused the Quebec Liberals of being either incompetent or disloyal.

But the by-election was already screwed up. And that blame was already filtering back to Stephane Dion. Dion was supposed to win Quebec back for the Liberals. That was the promise made by Dion apologists to the grassroots who then voted him leader. Dion's people could see the disaster happening. They were already under a great deal of pressure because of the embarrassing state of Liberal fundraising. To protect themselves and to protect Stephane Dion, they fired a preemptive shot, aimed directly at Quebec Liberals.

Why not? Stephane Dion had already lost Quebec. How much worse could it get?

Dumb question. Of course it could get worse. Now pissed off, these Quebec Liberals made sure Stephane Dion's man, Jamie Carroll, was rendered radioactive in Quebec. What he did or did not say about Quebecers and Chinese was irrelevant. If Quebec Liberals said Jamie Carroll uttered a slur about Quebecers, then that's what happened. If Stephane Dion insists that this wasn't what happened, it just doesn't matter. Quebec does not listen to Stephane Dion, and they haven't been listening for a long, long time.

The grassroots was told Quebec would start listening. They were told wrong.

Over the weekend, Jamie Carroll offered everybody a way out. He said he would resign if he did not have unanimous support of the National Executive and he asked for severance. It's unfortunate that this happened after the leader defended him in public, but it wasn't the end of the world. If you read his memo, this was clearly supposed to be the beginning of a private negotiation for him to leave.

What did all the complainers do? They made the memo public!

Oh dear. I guess the Liberal Party needs some of that control-freak communications clamp-down juice they drink at the PMO. You know. That stuff Garth Turner whines on about, how he was never allowed to speak his mind when he was a Conservative.

See what happens when people speak their mind? Especially when they have it mind to eject Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party? The problem for Stephane Dion and his apologists is that they have no clue as to just how reviled Stephane Dion is in some quarters. People who loathe his selection as leader are found everywhere in the party infrastructure. That's why the memo went public.

Jason doesn't get it. These people want to hurt the Liberal Party:

In case you didn't get the message, attacking the leader's employment decisions in public only hurts the party. That's the whole goddamn point. This has nothing to do with defending Jamie Carroll.

Duh! One more time. They want to hurt the party! By hurting the party, they hurt Stephane Dion. They can't hurt Stephane Dion directly -- the Liberal Party constitution has no mechanism to eject a leader except after a general election loss. So there has to be a general election, and the Liberal Party has to lose it, and lose it in a big way.

That way Stephane Dion has no choice but to go, since by then the grassroots -- no longer fooled by Dion propagandists -- will demand that he go. Dion could never survive a Leadership Endorsement Ballot that is required after an election loss.

The grassroots people who voted for Stephane Dion will feel like they've been cheated by every Dion supporter and apologist who said Dion would take back Quebec for the Liberals, and return the Liberals to power. That means Stephane Dion and everyone around him will have to go.

The people who want Stephane Dion gone are following the only path open to them to guarantee that end.

These people are not "stupid f*cking idiots".

These people are driven by a desire to save the Liberal Party. It is a testament to Stephane Dion's leadership and the communications skills of the people around him that these people have reached this point. To them, the Liberal Party is not worth saving if it means Stephane Dion is leading it.

Calling them names won't help. As far they are concerned, the idiots (with whatever qualifiers you choose to put in front of that label) are those who conned the grassroots into selecting Stephane Dion.

These people are gunning after Dion and all his supporters. If cutting them out of the Liberal Party means wrecking the Liberal Party in the process, so be it. These people are motivated. These people have a goal.

No, that's not right.

These people have a mission.

I think I can see why, faced with this reality, Jason's brain seems to have broken: