Angry in the Great White North

The YouTube video is spreading rapidly through the blogosphere.  And though no doubt most of my readers have seen it, I'll post the video here as well.  It speaks for itself:

Until now, Liberal leader Stephane Dion has been on the sidelines.  He has been the armchair quarterback, yelling at Stephen Harper about what a terrible job Harper has been doing through the financial crisis unfolding in the United States.

So during an interview, Steve Murphy of ATV (part of CTV) asks Stephane Dion the most obvious question of all:

What would you have done differently?

Every armchair quarterback is faced with this question at one time or another.  It's one thing to yell insults at the real quarterback, but virtually every armchair quarterback has no real clue of what it really takes to do the job.

And no armchair quarterback is likely to be offered the chance to do the job for real.

But Stephane Dion is running for the job of prime minister.  So the question is relevant and critically important:

What would you have done differently?

And Stephane Dion didn't get it.  In three attempts, he didn't get it.  People were yelling at him from off camera, and he still didn't get it.

He just sat there and grinned in the most ridiculous manner. 

And we still don't have the answer.

What would you have done differently?

Plenty of people are commenting on Stephane Dion's ineptness at English, and what it could mean to be a world leader of a predominantly English-speaking country who seems so utterly lost in the language. 

It is an important point.  Indeed, it could be the most important point.

Others are examining the role of the media, and the attempts at the Liberal Party to keep this video under wraps.  Don't Canadians deserve to know as much as possible about their potential leaders, especially when it comes to something as critical as communication skills?

I think they do.  And now we know much more about Stephane Dion, and we can wonder just how much the Liberal Party knew, and didn't want us to know.

But for me, I'm still waiting on the answer to the question.  It is the answer that justifies voting for Stephane Dion, an unknown quantity, versus keeping with Stephen Harper.

I've already made my decision, but anyone who spends as much time complaining about what Stephen Harper has done over the last two weeks as Stephane Dion has ought to be compelled to answer the question, or shut his yap.

What would you have done differently?

Realistically, I never expected to get an answer to that question from Stephane Dion.  Or at best, an answer that told us nothing of value.

But to get a non-answer that tells us so much about a man who thinks he's qualified to be prime minister? Quelle surprise!

What would Stephane Dion have done differently?  If I was to hazard a guess (and since it is not likely that Stephane Dion would ever be able to answer the question for himself without a team of media handlers scripting the answer for him to read out), then I would say that Stephane Dion, when informed of the massive movements in the stock markets, would have grinned, looked around bobbing his head, and started burbling about the Green Shift or the weather or something.  It would have been up to others in the room to actually decide what, if anything, was to be done.

It's just a guess, but based on what we've seen, I think it's a pretty good guess.