Monday, February 16, 2009

Q & A

For those who missed it, Maclean's has a great one-on-one Q & A with Michael Ignatieff up on their site - Ken Whyte really hit him with some tough questions and, by and large, Iggy seemed to defend himself well.

posted by calgarygrit at 5:27 p.m.

10 Comments:

  • Iggy did well. Not surprising! He's spend years on the cocktail and academic circuit. Very different from Stephane.

    By Blogger JimTan, at 12:32 a.m.  

  • Half of Iggy's answers were dodging the questions. Some were well done, but he definitely dodged and weaved whenever they tried to pin him.

    I guess if you liked him before, this is good fodder, otherwise, it's not much.

    By Blogger Ian, at 2:02 a.m.  

  • Well, you're supposed to dodge the questions in politics.

    There was one where he gave an answer on stem cells that seemed to have nothing to do with the question being asked but, by and large, the dodges were fairly well executed. B+

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 9:46 a.m.  

  • Iggy only "did well" in this interview if you ignore the completely contradictory and illogical statements he made.

    You can't be against torture and in favour of coercive interrogation; they are the same by all standards of international law.

    You can't be for the coalition and against it.

    You can't oppose the budget and then vote for it.

    You can't give props to international law and human rights and then support every war of aggression by the US.

    You can't oppose Harper and then vote with him, especially on matters that violate pay equity, environmental protection, progressive taxation, etc.

    These contradictions are just slippery attempts to confuse everyone on his road to power. The guy has zero principles, save for stroking his own ego and giving romantic justifications for bombing Third World countries.

    It's amazing -- and disgusting -- to see the uncritical and unintelligent fawning over this arrogant, narcissistic, opportunistic, and imperialist jerk.

    There is absolutely nothing progressive about Michael Ignatieff.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:48 a.m.  

  • Iggy kept his leardership machine going since he lost in 2006. He did not spend any time in those 2 years on anything other than trying to gain the leardership of the liberal party.His team made sure the right people were in place in the executive and then worked on his support on the hill. Now he has pushed who he think is his biggest threat in the party to the back of the room .Have a look and see who went from the front bench to the back as soon as iggy took over and you will find no other than Mr Kennedy.This guy is a sly fox who does not care about the grassroot of this country.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:08 p.m.  

  • Kennedy and Rae have been pushed to the backbenches????

    Rae has the same critics portfolio as he did before and it seems to me from interviews Rae gives, Iggy is trusting him to deliver unscripted responses.

    As for Kennedy... the infrastructure critics role is backbench stuff???? It is being given the highest profile of all of the critics roles probably including finance. Kennedy has been given the chance to ask more significant questions than anyone other than the leader himself. Kennedy has actually had way more of a higher profile under Ignatieff than he ever did under Dion, who would not even have been leader had it not been for Kennedy.

    So I think Kennedy's high profile actually shows a very different leader than we've had in a long time. Kennedy ran against Ignatieff in 2006, then thwarted Ignatieff's win by endorsing Dion, and then poked Ignatieff in the eye with his endorsement of Rae in the next leadership race.

    And how does Ignatieff punish him for his "disloyalty"? He gives Kennedy the most significant critics role and lets Kennedy come up with the best attack questions on infrastructure (rather than steal them for himself as has been done by other leaders).

    Historically, I think you have to go back to Pearson to find a leader of any party who has shown such confidence in himself and his team to allow so much of the limelight to go to Rae, Kennedy, McCallum, Brison and others.

    By Blogger Ted Betts, at 12:57 p.m.  

  • "You can't oppose Harper and then vote with him, especially on matters that violate pay equity, environmental protection, progressive taxation, etc."

    Sure you can - the question is whether you do it effectively enough to not get called on it.

    And yes good liars make good leaders - it enables them to avoid public pressure for a long enough time to enact good policies that back-benchers are too lily-livered; pundits are too stupid and the public too short-sighted to realize are good policies.

    By Blogger french wedding cat, at 5:19 p.m.  

  • Ted,
    So you think kennedy poked Iggy in the eye with his support of Rae.This was purly done to show his opposition to iggys narrow vision of not including the grassroot in this very important decision.iggy has now jumped on the bandwagon of renewal,which by the way is what Kennedy was talking about in 2006 but no one was listening.You can not have it both ways,talking renewal and grassroot and pushing your way through the door to grab the leardership of the party.Like i said a sly fox, but all foxes eventually get outfoxed.

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