Political Chum

This excerpt is taken from the February 19, 2004 edition of Terminal City. I’d offer the actual story link, but the article will disappear in less than a week. Anyway, here’s Brian Salmi, head of the Gnu Democratic Rhino Reform Party (a party under whose proud banner I ran in two elections) talking about the Federal NDP:

Several months back, I opined that the provincial NDP was a lost cause, a mad cow of a political party, staggering around waiting for someone to put it out of its misery. Well, as former Prime Minister of Bumblefuck Harold Wilson so astutely pointed out, a week is a long time in politics, and I must, for the moment, retract my bold projection. However, my retraction has nothing to do with any great leap forward by the provincial NDP. The hopes of the provincial NDP lie with federal Leader Jackie Layton’s ability to make the party relevant again.

Jackie Layton has done an amazing job of bringing the socialists back from the grave. Under the stewardship of Alexa McDonough and Audrey McLaughlin, the NDP all but disappeared. But Jackie Layton has changed all that.

Jackie Layton is smart, articulate, politically savvy and charismatic, and that counts for heaps in politics. Paul Martin, on the other hand, is smart and articulate, but is completely devoid of charisma, and, as we’re seeing right now with the Pay Pal scandal, not as politically savvy as many had thought.

Did you catch that? No? Allow me to repeat it: Pay Pal scandal. In a more just world, that is what the media would dub the current buffoonery.