Strategy by Lewis Tulley

It took a little while, but watching some Newsworld coverage of the federal mini-budget, I had a revelation about the whole "It's my election, but I don't want the credit for calling it" thing going on in Ottawa.

Lack of sleep and a couple of Timmies on an empty stomach might be the recipe for becoming a political guru in Canada.

1. Opposition (all three parties) had pegged hopes on Gomery 1 - the report that actually assessed what happened during the sponsorship crime spree. They figured a big bad report would make it easy to attack the liberals. Best case: they bring down the government right away and are rewarded by outraged Canadians. Worst case: they hammer away until Gomery the Second, Martin drops the writ and they reap the rewards.

2. In reality, Gomery is a big fizzle for the Opp guys. Hence, Plan Z - the complex, multi-step thingy that is tactics masquerading as strategy.

3. Push an election before Gomery 2, which, after all, only fits into the PM's timelines and will likely now boost Liberal re-election chances.

4. Drop the government in such a way that you don't get blamed for it. Polls show that responsibility for bringing the election no one wants at a time they really don't want it will earn a drop in the polls.

5. In response to this post, RGL will:

a. completely miss the point (The SM-62 Snark of political blogging - one test missile launched north, from the United States, actually ended up in Brazil. Honest to God, that is true...about the missile) ;

b. claim I am yet again defending Satan Paul Martin despite evidence that he is corrupt and leads a corrupt party of the filth of humanity that Gomery proves is just totally corrupt (of course, I am not and Gomery didn't, but why let facts prevent the pre-planned but not reflexive anti-Satan Martin attack Liam has been brewing since his last pre-planned but apparently spontaneous expression of disdain for the PM);

c. accuse me of being a reflexively - partisan untermenschen that should be flayed alive and then put in jail or better still a concentration camp and worked to death and their bodies burned to ash and scattered in a Toronto landfill Liberal who cannot admit his biases (veracity is not a hallmark of wild accusations anyway, but the crossed out bits are sorta funny);

d. point to the fact this blog does not have a comments section as therefore being proof your humble e-scribbler is somehow anti-democratic, cowardly and few other things slightly nastier than having voted Liberal less often than RGL has voted for any party to the right of my typical choice. (This line is actually testimony to your being totally predictable, Liam);

e. launch into a recitation of the endless ways in which all whores Liberals (all of them, starting with someone more evil than Satan whose name escapes me at the moment Paul Martin) are responsible for every dang-blasted thing that it is truly repulsive on the planet and should actually welcome the coming public slaughter as a way of atoning for their evident misdeeds (that's a variation on the Gomery-as-Protocols of the Elders of Zion argument from Connie Talking Point KN005-SRH-MMD-KL);

Bonus points if you can figure out what the letters in the serial number stand for.

f. receive in his own comments section:

- two spam messages from someone praising the great [insert computer generated word here] of his post and then giving a link to some offshore porn site,

- another series of e-mails from his fellow members of Blogging Tories(who are merely friends and associates, not RGL's political soul-mates) praising his incisive comments, linking to their comments which use suspiciously similar words and phrases as RGL's "insights", and suggesting they all pray together for the coming Lib-ocalypse (copyright pending), to which Liam will reply with posts of his own as longer or longer than the original one which also use curiously common phrases that appear to be a secret code of some kind, and,

- a string of notes in which Liam and the commentor engage in a series of inside jokes that should have been exchanged in e-mails;

g. not see any humour at all in the last series of comments or fail to appreciate they are offered in good-humour and with tongue firmly in cheek.

Come to think of it, given the intricate nature of the tactical two-step currently going on in Ottawa, it might just be that this time around, the Keymaster has actually found the Gatekeeper.

Then you can get really depressed. After all, if you scroll back through this post, the entire "strategy" here is summed up in a couple of lines. The best part of the post is the stuff parodying RGL.

*sigh*