Consider the talk surrounding the possibility of an election:

Sources told CTV News that Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has told party members he is ready to pull the election trigger over the budget bill, even though some Liberals are against the idea.

"All the senior people, including the people who run the campaign ... they don't want an election right now. They do not want an election because they do not believe the party is ready to go into an election," Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live.

He said that the Conservatives have reacted by getting their election headquarters "up and running. They're getting their planes booked. The campaign workers have been told to get ready for an election campaign."

Fife noted, however, that the divisions over calling an election call run deep in the Liberal Party. He said senior Liberals such as Ralph Goodale, Michael Ignatieff, and Bob Rae don't want an election right now.

"One senior member of parliament said to me, either we're going to get (Dion) to change his mind or maybe we're going to have to push him off the ledge," Fife said.

Push Stephane Dion off the ledge?  This is not a case of loose lips.  This "senior member of parliament" was very deliberate in his choice of words, and quite eager to have those words repeated by CTV News.

The point was to get a message to Liberals in a way that could not be ignored.  It also insulated the speaker from direct retribution (though I have no doubt Stephane Dion knows who it is).

And that's the problem.  It's not that Liberals disagree on the timing of an election.  There will always be disagreements.  And it's not just the public way in which these Liberals have chosen to attack Stephane Dion.  Politicians have always used the media as their own personal telephone network precisely because it is a party line.  Usually it's used to gauge public opinion to an idea without attributing the idea to anyone in particular (in case the idea turns out to be a stinker).

Here's what gets me.  No one will be punished for his.  A senior Liberal tells a CTV reporter that a coup is being planned, and that Stephane Dion won't be allowed to win this election.  Let's be clear on this.  This senior Liberal says "we" will push Stephane Dion off the ledge, meaning Dion will get his election just so that he can be removed as leader.  Short of a Liberal majority, Stephane Dion won't be allowed to retain the leadership if he insists on ignoring the advice he is being given and takes Canadians to the polls over the upcoming budget.

I seriously doubt Stephane Dion will be allowed to stay on as leader in a Liberal minority government.

That means when we see senior Liberals together on a stage, we all know that one or more (probably more) of them have already decided to remove Stephane Dion as leader.

But Stephane Dion is leader.  He can act preemptively.

He won't though.  Maybe he truly can't, despite the fact that he should be able to.  Either way, Stephane Dion is a leader beset by enemies, and unable or unwilling to do anything about it.  And his enemies know it, which is why they're being so blatant about it.

What sort of leader sits passively by, allowing his enemies to take the initiative, to present ultimatums, to humiliate him publicly, and, ultimately, to promise that his end is near?

That some Liberals want Dion gone is not a surprise.  That Stephane Dion seems to have already left is.

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