I guess the Liberal leadership candidates don’t see the need to attack each other, given that Jeffrey Simpson is doing such a good job of it.
Simpson followed up yesterday’s attack on Bob Rae with a scathing piece on Michael Ignatieff today. Among his critiques from the past two days:
“There being a list of candidates with serious deficiencies…”
“Mr. Ignatieff has the fewest Canadian scars by virtue of having fought the fewest battles in his own country, a fact that, in other countries would almost automatically disqualify anyone from serious leadership ambition”
“What’s obvious is the paucity of endorsements of Mr. Rae by prominent Ontario federal Liberals”
“Although Mr. Ignatieff insists he always considered himself a Canadian, it was hard to discern that while he lived in the United States.”
“Mr. Rae is wheel-spinning, maybe dying politically”
Ouch.
These two articles follow some of Simpson’s recent writings, which have included:
“Watch those Liberal hobbits scurry about the leadership stage“
“Style, sure, but where’s Mr. Kennedy’s substance?“
“Ignatieff’s unbearable lightness of absence“
Stay tuned for future Simpson profiles including:
“Dion’s asinine ramblings”
“Martha Hall Findlay: Menace to Canada?”
“You can’t spell Bevilacqua without evil”
“Ken Dryden nearly cost us the Summit Series”
Obviously Jeffrey Simpson is free to write what he pleases and a lot of his criticism has been valid. All I’ll say is that it’s a good thing Liberal leadership contenders can “take a punch“. Lesser men might start whining about a media conspiracy…