Globe sh*ts, yet remains on pot

It’s not the ringing endorsement every candidate for Prime Minister dreams of; it’s not really an endorsement at all, but the Saturday Globe and Mail has come out in favour of (drum roll please)……Not Paul Martin!

Seeming to acknowledge the malaise the Liberals have settled into:

While the past 12 years have been relatively good ones, the law of diminishing returns has been eroding Liberal effectiveness since at least the 2000 election. A change of leadership in 2003 has failed to reverse the process.

And the feeling of entitlement:

Then there is this matter of the culture of entitlement that has taken deep root within the Liberal Party. C. D. Howe may have been arrogant in invoking closure before debate even began on the pipeline bill in 1956, but at least he didn't hold up his chewing gum and announce he was entitled to his entitlements.

The Globe still feels it necessary to offer this tidbit, just in case voters are too ready to put an “X” beside their local Conservative:

It is hard to endorse him and his party unreservedly. We worry about his seeming indifference to the need for a strong central government in a country so replete with runaway centrifugal forces. We worry about him teaming up with the Bloc Québécois to weaken the federal government's tax-raising capacity and its advocacy of national programs. We worry that he might have to strike retrograde compromises with social conservatives in the party's midst. We worry that he may prove heavy-handed in wielding the considerable powers of a prime minister.

If the Globe is so worried, what the hell was the point of this editorial? It seems almost certain to me that if public opinion was more in favour of the Liberals, this backdoor endorsement would never see the light of day. Much in the way Martin announces policy based on wind direction, so does the Globe now offer editorials.

For more inconsistency in this former bastion of conservatism, see Brian Mertens evidence.

GL