Being the premier of any province is a tough job.
It’s hard to appreciate just how tough the job is unless you’ve been there or have been pretty close to the person who has the job.
You can see the effect of the pressure in how fast people tend to age in office. That’s the basic point of a post from last October titled “The weight of office.” Danny Williams didn’t look unhealthy when he left office last fall but he was nowhere near the youthful looking fifty-odd year old fellow who started in the job in 2003.
Sometimes the strain of the job shows in other ways. Like say, the meltdown Kathy Dunderdale had at the last part of Question Period on Wednesday. The written record doesn’t show it, but take a look at the video.
Around the 44 minute mark, NDP leader Lorraine Michael starts on a series of questions that have barbs in them. There’s nothing in any of the questions that is the least bit unusual for a politician and there is nothing at all sexist in it.
In fact, odds are that Kathy Dunderdale herself has said something far more loathsome than the question perhaps in the heat of the moment on another occasion.
On this occasion, though, Dunderdale’s reaction is over-the-top. She gets red-faced and her voice cracks a lot. She brings up the rather obviously cheesy partisan attack Dunderdale’s political appointee made on opposition leader Yvonne Jones over a jab Jones made at Dunderdale.
Dunderdale looked flustered.
Something is bothering her but the one thing we can be sure of it: it wasn’t Lorraine’s pair of questions.
Well, not that alone.
- srbp -