A Taste of Iggy

What's a Grit got to do these days?

And so Mr. Ignatieff went there to eat – he had a hot dog, fries and a Coke – and to campaign among the lunch-time crowd. Not all of the patrons were pleased, however.

A table of nine elderly bowlers, who appeared to have a standing reservation after their Thursday game, were not impressed by Mr. Ignatieff, who was seated nearby.

One man was muttering under his breath about how annoying the whole scene was. He used profanity to describe the Liberal Leader but his wife shushed him a couple of times.

I didn't know my father was in Winnipeg...

Later, the elderly gentleman said he was a Conservative. He thought the election, which he blamed on Mr. Ignatieff, was too expensive.

Offered a hot dog, he said he didn’t want to eat “Liberal food.”

I object. I object. I object. How dare this man call hot dogs "Liberal food." I lived off hot dogs for years in university and I'm to the Right of Mike Harris and Margaret Thatcher. The hot dog is a noble conservative food. It is the food of people who want to eat cheaply and on the go.

The effete Liberal apparatchik may spend uncounted hours munching on his fusion Thai whatever, the conservative is a man on the go. The salesman, the entrepreneur and the engineer fighting for the new product and the new idea. It is his food. The hot dog is a warm meal between appointments. An experienced hot dog eater can - with little difficultly - consume an entire dog - full toppings - within the time it takes to power-walk a downtown Toronto city block. Publius has done this many times.

A well-timed hot dog  can carry the busy businessman through long and tedious hours of meetings and power-walking. I assure you, sir, that whatever the hot dog's momentary association with Mr Ignatieff, its pedigree is a long and honourable one. The Count shall return in time to his filet mignon. The hot dog, however, is as Tory as John George Diefenbaker. It is the snack food John A himself would have eaten, had it been in popular use at that time in our fair Dominion. No doubt it would have aided the father of our country in those harsh mornings after one of his occasional binges. 

Now gentle readers you know, and I know, that Lord Iggy ain't a hot dog kind of guy. With or without Colman's English Mustard. He's playing prole for the cameras. Just your everyday regular old fashioned Russian Count, U of T, Oxford and Harvard graduate, out munching on the food of the common man. I can buy Stephen of Leaside gobbling down a dog. He was once an ordinary guy. Super intelligent and politically obsessed, but just an ordinary guy. They might serve hot dogs in the circles Iggy usually moves in, but only ironically. Anyone who eats food ironically is not to be trusted.

I'd prefer we just drop the democratic levelling nonsense. Michael Ignatieff is not an ordinary guy. Stephen Harper is not an ordinary guy. Jack Layton doesn't fit anyone's idea of average, unless you hang around the faculty lounge at York University. A behavioural trait, incidentally, that should disqualify an individual from holding any kind of elected office. Politicians are different from you and me. They're ambitious. I don't mean that in a good way.

Ambition can be a very good thing. Looking out the window of my box in the sky, I can see the towers of downtown Toronto. That fine spectacle was built by very ambitious men and women (though in fairness it was mostly men for historical reasons). They were a certain kind of ambitious. They wanted to build things and make money. A top-flight medical researcher is also ambitious, to find a cure for a disease. Ambition is indeed a very good thing. It drives the world forward. However it has to be a productive sort of ambition. In modern politics ambition and productivity don't go hand in glove. There is nothing as unproductive as a government bureaucracy.

How do you get ahead in business? By making money. How do you get ahead in almost every productive field? By doing something other people find useful or admirable. How do you get ahead in politics? By promising to fleece one group of your fellow citizens for the benefit of another group of your fellow citizens. Like Mencken said, elections are an advance auction of stolen goods. And the bids are flying now. Ambition and other people's money are dangerous things.

Why not just admit that politicians are a superior class of person. Not in an ethical sense necessarily. Statistically speaking there must be honest politicians. Just as statistically speaking there must be innocent men in prison. Do you want ordinary schlepps ruling over you? Ambitious men are dangerous. They are also clever and usually clever enough not to be completely bamboozled by the bureaucrats who actually run this country. A real living and breathing ordinary person would be eaten alive by the Ottawa Mandarins.

Stephen Harper is more than clever enough to keep the Mandarins in check. His failings - as noted in this space last week - are ones of courage and vision. There's a genuine conservative in there somewhere, he's just afraid to come out and meet the nice voters of Canada. Is Iggy clever enough? Perhaps. Unfortunately he is also vain. This is the most dangerous character trait in a politician. It is what destroys most of them in the end.

Vanity is separate from ego. The latter is the overwhelming self confidence to think you can become a cabinet minister or prime minister. The former is the tendency to believe your own propaganda. Vain politicos- no matter how clever - are easily deceived by courtiers and deputy ministers. Iggy's got Jim Hacker written all over him. 

 

Comments

[Yukon Gold]

In all fairness, it was probably some tofu veggie 'hot dog' anyways. The fact that iggy thinks that he can buy our votes with hot dogs demonstrates his audacity. However, I do agree with him when he says that he's "a democrat from the bottom of my feet to the top of my toes" because the rest of his body is very dictatorial. Forcing his MPs to vote against getting rid of the gun registry, despite the wishes of their constituents, clearly shows his comtempt for rural Canadians and indiviual liberty.