Harper to caucus meeting on Nigel: When a drowning man is sinking..."helping him only drowns you". Must explain position on tragic refugees.
Then, there's the whole firewall thing.
Stephen Harper has spent his life building firewalls - around himself, around his team, his efforts to firewall Alberta are legendary.
All this fits within his free-market, libertarian mindset. He doesn't believe in community. He's not a big fan of social supports. He loves his country, sure, but the Canada we live in isn't necessarily the one he's got in mind.
Canada is more than a country, and certainly is no island - it is a symbol, an incubation space, a community. Communities are dynamic entities.
Stephen Harper is anything but dynamic. He doesn't believe in change; he wants to keep the world at bay. He throws anyone who rocks his boat - even at his own direction - overboard. Harper doesn't believe in throwing lifelines, because he's afraid he isn't strong enough to help keep them afloat as well.
Poor Stephen Harper almost seems stunned when the bodies he's thrown overboard - bodies like Tom Flanagan, Patrick Brazeau, Dean del Mastro, Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy - wash up on his shore. He gets very frustrated when his firewalls prove to be porous.
He should have spent less time trying to be The Prince and more time trying to be a leader.
The role of leader isn't to rise above and use your oars to knock stragglers off your boat; it's to raise all ships.
It's a lesson I don't believe he's capable of understanding, which is unfortunate; because he dug his feet into the sand, it's always just been a matter of time until he is swept away.
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