Angry in the Great White North

Check out the Liberal bloggers.  They are mad:

The Liberals face some hard decisions moving forward. Do they abstain on the budget, vote with the government or have some vote against, while others come down with the flu? Such is life when a minority government has the latitude to act like a majority. [Breaking: Harper Wins Majority]

Enough is enough. It’s time to lead. Otherwise, just what the hell are we doing anyways? [Dear Liberals: It's time to lead]

If he thought he could win, Canadians would be heading to the polls. However Stephane Dion, our Liberal leader, has announced he'll prop up the minority Harper government on the budget and on Afghanistan. [Dion Dodges Another Election Opportunity]

Hopefully we don't abstain this time, voting at least appears to be decisive. [The Budget]

It’s a disappointment. But also a letdown is that this government will live another day. [The budget]

And from the other side?  Jason Cherniak, of course, who thinks Stephane Dion did the right thing.  Of course.

Is this budget perfect? No. Does it include enough Liberal ideas for the Liberals to support it? I think so. [Yawn]

I think it behooves us to make a distinction between Liberal bloggers who have their own ideas, and Jason Cherniak and his ilk (got ilk?) who only express Stephane Dion's ideas.

For what it's worth, a quick survey suggests that Jason Cherniak is alone in agreeing with Stephane Dion. 

That Jason agrees with Stephane Dion shows admirable consistency, though one needs to be inconsistent to be consistently with Dion.

For example, two weeks ago, Jason Cherniak was defending the Afghanistan compromise, saying that Stephane Dion was being tactical.  Dion really didn't agree with the new Conservative motion (that extended the mission to 2011), argued Jason, but was pretending to in order to keep the caucus united.  Stephane Dion was going to defend the true Liberal position on Afghanistan by voting against the budget, a less divisive issue for the Liberals.

Jason's message: Stephane Dion is being clever.  You just wait and see!

Just because Stéphane Dion is not choosing Afghanistan as the election issue, it does not mean that Afghanistan will not motivate his decision on whether to force an election over the budget. Indeed, it is at that point that we will learn whether he really wants to end the combat mission. The exact words of a wishy-washy Parliamentary motion are all but meaningless. An attempt to change the Government of Canada, however, would be telling.

I guess Stephane Dion is telling us now, eh?

Is this a reflection of the Liberal Party as a whole, perhaps?  A majority expressing feelings ranging from weariness to disappointment (that was Garth Turner, by the way, showing that he still doesn't quite get that whole caucus unity thing) to downright fury.  Arrayed against them is a small praetorian guard so invested in Stephane Dion that they can no longer recognize the tortured convolutions they've been forced to undergo in order to defend him.

Wait until Bob Rae gets his seat.  I guess the real question is whether Michael Ignatieff will make a move against Dion before Rae has a chance to perform as a caucus member.