Harper Dims His Own Star.

I've been running it around in my own mind for quite some time and frankly, I can't believe what Harper did. 

I'm from the old school where former leaders are supposed to bask in their glory days and gently erase their self-inflicted disasters from the body politic. Most of 'em end up looking one hell of a lot better in the rear view mirror than they actually were in the harsh cold reality of the political arena.

So, before I tear a strip off Harper, I'll deal first with my own blinders and biases: didn't like Harper from Day One, thought he was not temperamentally suited to be Alliance leader, much less ours and yours truly foolishly looked to the long game rather than the expediency of the short. Of course, they gave as good as they got with emphasis on me not being a team player which was so true given that I didn't care for the last three coaches. But thems the breaks in politics.

Harper brought us wins but ultimately and perhaps inevitably our vicious slapdown from power.

But back to the big announcement: I mean, this simply, supposedly, isn't done in federal politics. The co-founder of the party is supposed to be all about unity after leaving office. He's supposed to be healer-in-chief, the guy we logically turn to to get the party back on its feet after we hit the canvas. The ExTM is supposed to show the way forward for the next leader.

But this thing stinks to high heaven. First off, it damns the unexpectedly anointed with at best faint praise. In other words, it doesn't do for Pierre what the Red Sea did for Moses. Hardly, to be polite.

Now, moving from bad to worse, it positively reeks of revenge and settling old scores against Charest in particular, Mulroney and the rest of the PCs in general.

Surprise, surprise, there was no love, to put it mildly, between Harper and Charest when they were first ministers. Charest goes on and on about his creation, the Council of the Federation but Harper allowed the premiers' instrument to be born without balls. So, there's bad blood there and it goes way way back. But the topper for Harper seems to have been when the premiers positively screamed bloody murder for an increased health transfer only to have Charest use a chunk of it to cut taxes right before an election. One side will say that one's word was allegedly broken while the other will argue that the CPC is all about lowering people's taxes. So it cuts both ways, but in the end it diminishes Harper. It comes off as a low blow and a rather petty one at that.

They say that an elephant never forgets. One wonders if that means that's the direction Harper is heading in next time right after reincarnation.