Now that Christmas season is in full swing, Canadians should focus their attention on festive thoughts instead of politics, right?
Wrong.
In fact, now is the perfect time to begin a national dialogue on a key and pressing political question: Which Christmas character most resembles Liberal leader Stephane Dion?
It's a contentious question to be sure because there are so many possibilities.
You could argue, for instance, Dion is a lot like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, given that other politicians use TV ads to call him names. Plus they never let poor Dion win any Parliamentary games.
But you could also make a legitimate case Dion is actually more like Frosty the Snowman. Frosty, as is well known, had a definite dislike of warm winter days, which certainly parallels Dion's urgent desire to end global warming.
And more to the point, whenever Dion feels any kind of political heat he seems to melt away in the polls.
On the other hand, some might suggest Dion is most like the Kris Kringle character in that most favourite of all Christmas movies, The Miracle on 34th Street.
In that movie Kringle was an old man who wanted skeptical authorities to believe he actually was the real Santa Claus. And isn't that just like Dion who wants skeptical voters to believe he actually is a real leader?
Of course, if he does succeed in convincing voters to believe he's a real leader, that would certainly count as an official Christmas miracle.
To my mind, however, Dion is most like cranky old Ebenezer Scrooge.
Now that will likely surprise many people. Conventional wisdom, after all, usually suggests it's Conservatives who are the mean-spirited, cold-hearted types, not Liberals who are supposed to be Santa Claus-like in their generosity, at least when it comes to spending taxpayers' money.
But just consider how miserly and Scrooge-like Dion was a few months ago when he promised to undo the Conservative government's popular GST cut.
"Tax cuts. Bah humbug," he seemed to be saying to over-taxed Canadians.
What's more, just like Scrooge, Dion is being haunted by ghosts -- not Christmas ghosts, mind you, but something much more scary -- political ghosts.
The Ghost of Liberals Past, for instance, seems to be pushing Dion to emulate Liberal policies from the 1970s and so move his party more to the left of the political spectrum.
(And what's really scary is Dion actually seems to be listening to that advice.)
As for the Ghost of Liberals Present, well I suspect it isn't exactly haunting Dion. More likely it's in secret backroom meetings with party operatives trying to figure out a way to dump Dion as Liberal leader.
GHOST OF LIBERALS FUTURE
Then there is the Ghost of Liberals Future. For Dion, this must be the most frightening spirit of all. For you don't have to be a supernatural phantom to predict his political future is a lot less bright than Rudolph's nose.
I realize, of course, this type of discussion is likely ruining the Christmas spirit for a lot of Liberals.
But I can't help myself because you see, the holiday character I most resemble is the Grinch.
Merry Christmas everybody.
