The (Dull, Competent) Devil We Know

On sighs masked as endorsements, Iggy getting mad as hell (whether he's taking it anymore is uncertain), and socks.

In one of the most non-committal endorsements in its history, The Globe and Mail has cast its lot with Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. After an airing of grievances over the party's uninspired campaign, ruthless governance style, and disrespect for democracy, the editorialists rationalize that “only Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have shown the leadership, the bullheadedness (let's call it what it is) and the discipline this country needs.” His economic record is sound, they say, and his party's deepest flaw is how it governs, not what policies it implements. Call it picking the devil you know over the squabbling saints you don't.

As to why the Globe didn't endorse Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, whom it calls an “honourable opposition leader,” the National Post's Jonathan Kay surmises it could be a combination of the party's “weirdness and desperation” in recent days. The erudite, typically calm Ignatieff was pounding on tables and telling the Tories they can “go to hell” at editorial meetings with the Toronto Star and Globe, while the party brought out Jean Chrétien for rallies and last-ditch fundraising drives. For a party whose campaign has been focused on the Tory abuses of power and autocratic tendencies, “[trotting] out this unapologetic icon of old-world backroom handshakes as their public face and fundraiser” smacks of a fatal irony.

Political history and editorial meetings aside, Ed the Sock offers one of the more left-field and insightful (really) takes on why the Grits' tactics have tanked: 1970s and '80s action flicks, in which brash, maverick cops played by their own rules. “The most solid support for the Conservatives are men in their late 30s through their 50s,” men who would have been weaned on Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley from Beverly Hills Cop. “Professor Ignatieff, yelling about breach of parliamentary rules, is the clueless authority figure from all those shows and movies,” says Ed. “It’s the media message of the previous century, that the bad boy is the hero and rules are for losers, which has led to this resolute male block support for Harpo.” Out of the cigar-stuffed mouths of decades-old socks ...