Hence his successful service in both the Smallwood and Williams administrations, where he probably spoke truth to power daily using the vocabulary worthy of a Rhodes scholar:
"Yes, Mr. Premier, I do believe the obscurating clouds have now been successfully dissipated and the glorious solar orb is now once more emitting its miraculous benefit at full luminosity safe ensconced from between your nether cheeks".
Rowe endorses the idea of Sir Danny the Good leading a band of seven virtuous sons (and daughters) of The Cause on a Quest for the Holy Grail of More Hand-outs from Ottawa.
Rowe nominates Danny for the lead role. He genuflects so strenuously in doing so (even in writing) that one fears Rowe will poke out an eye or two if he does not calm down.
Andy Wells is cast as, one expects, Sir Lancelot. In true suck-arse fashion, Rowe credits Andy Wells - the other amigo in the little band - for calling this band the Bloc Newfoundland and Labrador. Since Rowe long since abandoned the party he once led - up to a sorry encounter with some brown envelopes - he likely forgets that credit for inventing the most ludicrous idea in Newfoundland political history since A.B. Morine as minister of justice goes to:
Roger Grimes. A Liberal leader who - unlike Rowe - can say more of his political career than Brian Tobin used to hand out envelopes for him.
Rowe himself?
Likely Bedevere from the Monty Python incarnation of the fairy tale: "and that my Liege is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped...".
That's about the only way one can explain not only the farcical Bloc but lines like this, which Rowe types with all earnestness:
It would be a double whammy. One, Danny could punish Harper for his treachery by helping to deny him a majority government. Two, like Quebec, we’d have a solid group of MPs pulling on the same oar, dedicated solely to this province’s best interests.Deny Harper a majority government.
Right.
Even the much-vaunted Bloc, which for all the praise it gets from people like Rowe has produced exactly what for Quebec from the Government of Canada...
Zip?
Nada?
Bupkis?
And outside of a few chuckles, that - s.f.a. - is what Bill's latest column is worth.
If the Bloc's 57 or 60 or whatever number they've achieved cannot produce one ounce of influence on anyone outside Quebec, then there is simply no means by which seven could do more.
Power rests in the cabinet, and particularly in the first minister's office. The Blocheads will never see the inside of either, and that is why a Bloc, whether from Quebec, Prince Edward Island or Dannystan would be as useless as, well, writing a book commentary without having read the book.
How odd that Rowe, who has shown himself to be a reliable compass needle for local political butt-lickers, could not figure out the location of the same power source in Ottawa.
Bill's needle is off on this Bloc one.
But, as it did 40 years ago, it still faithfully indicates the motherlode of Newfoundland political magnetism.