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I know I should stop talking about the rationales for, or causes of, the U.S. war in Iraq. It is the present and future that matter, and many wise people think we must all hope for the greatest possible U.S. success in what they have started--however exactly they started it.
Still, I can't resist the changing stories. When will someone really try to clarify for us all when Saddam last had effective WMDs? What year? Was it 1998, when Clinton bombed? (Clinton himself has said he fully believed there were WMDs at the time, and it was unlikely that the bombs got them all). 1995? 1993?
Christopher Hitchens is a very clever individual. He has made a name for himself by his attacks on Mother Theresa, and he has picked fights with his left-wing former friends. Now he is all for Bush's war and foreign policy.
Here is Hitchens' latest--still defending Bush throughout on this issue; Saddam was both an unusually terrible tyrant and unusually threatening to his neighbours, and to the U.S. What about WMDs?
"The counsel of prudence offered above by Bush [Senior] and Scowcroft was all very well as far as it went. But it did leave Saddam Hussein in power, and it did (as its authors elsewhere concede) involve the United States in watching from the sidelines as Iraqis were massacred for rebelling on its side and in its name. It left the Baathist regime free to continue work on weapons of mass destruction, which we know for certain it was doing on a grand scale until at the very least 1995. And it left Saddam free to continue to threaten his neighbors and to give support and encouragement to jihad forces around the world."
According to Hitchens in November, then, Saddam's regime was working on WMDs at least up until 1995.
Here is Hitchens in May: "I did write before the war, and do state again (in my upcoming Slate/Penguin-Plume book) that obviously there couldn't have been very many weapons in Saddam's hands, nor can the coalition have believed there to be. You can't station tens of thousands of men and women in uniform on the immediate borders of Iraq for several months if you think that a mad dictator might be able to annihilate them with a pre-emptive strike."
In other words, U.S. officials must not have believed there were any WMDs to speak of at the time of the invasion, or their behaviour would have been crazy. Has Hitchens changed his story?
Were there WMDs in Iraq shortly before the U.S. invasion, and did the Bush administration think there were?
When, according to Hitchens in May, did Saddam most likely ditch his WMDs, and why? During the UN debates in 2002-03, and mainly if not solely because of the imminent (there's that word again) threat of a U.S. attack.
"Thus if nothing has been found so far, and if literally nothing (except the mobile units predicted and described by one defector) is found from now on, it will mean that the operation was a success. The stuff must have been destroyed, or neutralized, or work on it must have been abandoned during the long grace period that was provided by the U.N. debates."
So: did Saddam still have WMDs at the beginning of 2002, so that they only disappeared since then? Or is it more believable to say he had them in 1995, and possibly not since, or not since 1998 at the latest? Is it possible he hasn't had much of anything since 1993?
How could a country with the biggest and most sophisticated intelligence apparatus in the world be forced back to the crudest guesses about this? How could U.S. officials not know?
And while I'm at it: why doesn't some enterprising reporter find out what happened to the Iraqi air force? There was one during Gulf War I, although much of it was moved to another country for safekeeping. What happened to it? In its absence, Iraqi troops, if they didn't simply run for it, were sitting ducks for U.S. and British air strikes, with the result that Coalition ground forces hardly encountered an enemy in uniform.
What about Iraqi tanks? What exactly happened to them? Is it true that many of them were destroyed in 1991, and Saddam was never able to replace them?
What about Stinger and other anti-aircraft missiles, initially supplied by the U.S. to the mujahadeen for the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan? Why have so few of those put in an appearance, in either Afghanistan or Iraq? (One may finally have appeared in the last week).
Oops: I got one detail wrong. The one anti-aircraft missile that has actually been deployed against the U.S. in recent days was apparently a Soviet-made one: "The Chinook that was shot down last Sunday is believed to have been felled by an SA-7, a Soviet-designed weapon that is stockpiled in some 70 countries."
Update: According to Fred Kaplan in Slate in May: "The Iraqis [during the "combat" period] fired their anti-aircraft artillery 1,224 times and launched 1,660 surface-to-air missiles. As a result, they put out of action six helicopters and a single A-10." Kaplan stresses here that the U.S. campaign was not as "smart" as the public were led to believe; much of it consisted of dropping old-fashioned bombs on civilians and soldiers.
Update Nov. 9: One big story now is that mass graves are being investigated in Iraq. There may be as many as 263, with remains of as many as 300,000 people. Question: when is the last year any bodies are likely to have been added to these mass graves?
"[Sandra] Hodgkinson (Director of Human Rights, Coalition Provisional Authority] said the majority of people buried in the mass graves are believed to be Kurds killed by Saddam in the 1980s after rebelling against the government and Shiites killed after an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War."
So it is possible that no bodies had been added after 1993?
The larger question is this: was Saddam's regime getting steadily worse, so that some kind of cataclysmic event was inevitable, and drawing closer (if not exactly imminent)?; or was the worst period 1991-1993, and had things perhaps gotten better, both for the people of Iraq and for Iraq's neighbours, for 10 years or so before the U.S. invasion? Was it only or primarily the sanctions (for which the Iraqi people paid a high price) that imposed some kind of moderation on Saddam?
It is not often that I read something I find truly astonishing; here is one.
A piece by
Frank Johnson in the Spectator, October 25 issue, mostly about the leader who was soon to be dumped by his Caucus, Iain Duncan Smith. Johnson's main point is that if "everyone" says Smith should go, "everyone" ("a few media people at London dinner parties") is probably wrong, as they have been so often (he says always) before.
Suddenly he switches to Iraq. "'Everyone', then, says that Mr. Duncan Smith is doomed. This is the best sign that he might still avoid that crash.
"This is a difficult time for those of us who have come to think that, on balance, the United States should not have invaded Iraq, and that the occupation is going wrong, but who also want Britain and the United States to enjoy a 'special relationship'. It is possible to be pro-American without always approving of what America does.
"With this in mind, I would draw attention to a visiting British politician's speech on American soil as reported in the Washington Star on 31 December 1940, and quoted in one of the books of diplomatic reminiscences by the pre-war Italian ambassador to several countries, Daniele Vare.
"'America's entry into the [1914-18] war was disastrous not only for your country but for the allies as well because had you stayed at home and minded your own business we would have made peace with the central powers in the spring of 1917 and then there would have been no collapse of Russia, followed by communism; no breakdown in Italy, followed by fascism, and nazism would not be at present enthroned in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war and minded her own business, none of these 'isms' would today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government.'
"My sentiments entirely; but, had the neoconservatives existed in 1940, the author of those words have been denounced as just an ungrateful European anti-American envious of America's power. Absent though they are from Martin Gilbert, the words are Churchill's."
I have literally never before encountered the suggestion that the U.S. intervention in World War I was a mistake, or at least unfortunate--even disastrous--in its consequences. Nor have I heard anyone suggest that this was Churchill's view.
Can anyone help me with more information/background on what Churchill said? Did he mean that Lloyd George was wrong to welcome U.S. intervention in 1917, and that Wilson was wrong to supply it? Or simply that there were terrible unforeseen and unintended consequences, which none of the leaders involved could have expected?
Please e-mail me at robertson0425@rogers.com
Update: No response so far. I should have made clear that I have encountered the idea that Wilson's idealism screwed up the Versailles peace process after the war, just not the idea that the U.S. intervention in the war itself was bad news.
I only have one history of WWI at home--ironically, by Martin Gilbert. I have borrowed a little book called "Versailles and After" from the public library.
The logic probably goes like this. Wilson was re-elected in 1916, and inaugurated in January [oops! March] 1917. He said on April 2 that "the world must be made safe for democracy"; he may also have made this statement earlier. On April 4 the U.S. Senate voted to declare war; on April 6 the House of Representatives did so, and the U.S. officially declared war that day.
The war had been something of a stalemate, but with U.S. resources now coming to Europe (they would take months to actually arrive), "The Allied powers now outnumbered the Central Powers in manpower and resources." Russia was still fighting, despite an increasingly chaotic situation in Moscow, and mutinies among their troops. The Russian generals had concluded that only the abdication of the Tsar could prevent anarchy. On March 15-16, the Tsar abdicated and a Provisional Government was established, although it had to compete with the Petrograd Soviet which issued Order Number One on March 14.
The joint German and Ausrian High Command made plans to allow Lenin to travel to Russia by rail from Zurich through Germany. Their plan was not so much to help Lenin, as to take Russia out of the war (a direction in which it was already clearly moving). Lenin's alternative route would have been by rail through France, then by sea from Britain to North Russia. There is an excellent chance that if had tried this, the Western Allies would have arrested him in order to keep Russia in the war. Lenin set out on April 8, and arrived in Petrograd (now, once again, St. Petersburg) on April 16. The Kaiser approved of this plan to help Lenin, and there was also official German financial backing for the Bolsheviks, including a secret subsidy for the newspaper Pravda. Of course, this didn't stop the Germans from imposing harsh conditions on the new Soviet Union as the war drew to a close: huge pieces of territory were transferred from the Soviet Union to Germany, and then, as Germany was defeated in the West, these territories all began to demand their freedom or "national self-determination." More on that later.
Churchill's reasoning seems to have been that the Central Powers could have been offered a decent truce sometime in March 1917, just before the Communists took Russia out of the war completely.
Just from my brief glance here, it seems possible to argue that Russia was going to get out of the war anyway--doing so was hugely popular, and this was one of the major appeals of the Communists. As for whether it would have been better to come to terms with the Central Powers in March 1917: this gets back to the debate about Unconditional Surrender, or fighting until one side is thoroughly beaten. In 1918 the U.S. General Pershing, among others, thought it best to fight on until the Germany military was massively defeated. Many Western leaders, however, were confident that they could impose an armistice on the Germans which would be just as harsh as anything that was likely to be imposed on a thoroughly beaten enemy. That thinking led to the Versailles Treaty.
My understanding is that many Germans were frustrated when their forces surrendered at a point when they were still in pretty good shape. The army was fighting in France--they had not been driven back into Germany, and the navy had lots of ships in fighting trim. Why the surrender? One big reason is that the Germans had been promised a treaty that they could regard as just; this was a promise that Wilson could not keep.
The question is whether American idealism did more harm than good here.
I need to do more reading on the spreading of mutinies and Communist rebellion among the Central armies.
By November 1918, the German high command knew they simply couldn't count on anyone to fight any more. There had been a massive mutiny both in the army (on the Western front) and in the navy. Austria and Turkey had both negotiated their own armistices. The Communists held out a promise of peace, not only in the Soviet Union but, it seemed, for everyone. It may be that a lot of common German soldiers mutinied in 1918, then later blamed their leaders for surrendering. Such things have been known to happen.
There were significant Communist movements, enjoying some success at taking railway stations and even cities, in both Austria and Germany.
Much of the talk was of "national self-determination," and Wilson was always front and centre here. On January 8, 1918 Wilson set out his "Fourteen Points" to the U.S. Congress. Mostly it was about giving peoples who had been subject to "the Empires"--Turkish, Austrian, German--some degree of autonomy. They were not--yet--promised complete independence.
On October 14, 1918 the Emperor Charles of Austria (Hungary I think had already flown the coop)offered "federal freedom" to major nationalities within his empire. He was getting the message, but he was too late. Four days later, "the decisive blow to the survival of Austria-Hungary was struck when President Wilson insisted that "autonomy" for subject peoples was no longer an adequate fulfillment of their national rights."
Wilson acted as though he was in a contest, not so much to win World War I--more and more a foregone conclusion--as to win the loyalty of these "new, emerging" peoples, some of whom actually had long histories. The point was to win as many as possible of them over to liberal democracy, in the face of a successful propaganda effort by the Communists. In fairness to Wilson, he was in a tough fight, but it still seems he promised more than he could deliver. If the U.S. intervention in the war indirectly helped bring the Communists to power in Russia, and create the Soviet Union, then Wilson's insistence on an overall moral purpose for the war helped reinforce the sense that Versailles was a terrible failure, and thus indirectly strengthened Hitler's hand in Germany.
In the period between the world wars it became a cliche that liberal democracy was one political model that was dead or dying. It was sure to be replaced soon by some model from the radical left or the radical right, depending on one's preference. Saul Bellow wrote that it was more than thrilling when FDR simply said in 1933 that he stood for the liberal democratic model.
The little book on Versailles by Ruth Henig includes the following nuggets.
In 1919 and 1920, many wars were fought over the territories "between" Germany and the new Soviet Union. The outcomes of these wars largely had to be accepted by the West. This had a huge effect on the way the West as a whole perceived Central and Eastern Europe. "Traditionally, the Habsburg dominions had stood as the west's bulward against the danger of Russian expansion. In more recent times, as Habsburg power had waned, Berlin had come to replace Vienna. At the end of the war, however, neither was a feasible proposition."
The biggest problem with trying to put any trust in Germany was that public opinion in the Western Allied countries--Britain, France, and the U.S.--was strongly in favour of making the Germans pay for the war, and hanging the Kaiser to boot. The war had gone on so long, and become so costly, that the desire for retribution was almost impossible to resist. Churchill's point may have been that there was less of this rage in March 1917.
"The difficulties which bedevilled international relations in the inter-war years stemmed in great measure from this power vacuum in eastern Europe."
Wilson stood out during the war for his willingness, even his impatience, to sweep away all these old empires--with no clear idea of what would replace them, except for the somewhat abstract formulas (abstract given the complexity of many international situations)like "antional self-determination" and "democracy."
"To Wilson, the outbreak of the war was tangible proof of the failure of traditional European diplomacy, based on balances of power, armed alliances and secret negotiations....Wilson believed that the United States should take the lead in the creation of [a new international system based on law], and should at the same time pursue a rleated goal, the extension of democracy throughout the world. He saw this as a moral commitment, entrusted to the American people...."
Of course, it could be argued that the biggest problems of World War I still came out of the "old" diplomacy. For the Germans to help Lenin was a cynical trick. Every major participant at Versailles, certainly including Britain, had made promises that were conflicting or simply pie-in-the sky--often by way of secret deals, the very publication of which caused outrage. Still: Did Wilson with his moralistic idealism actually do as much as was within his power to make democracy seem weak and even contemptible?
I certainly can't tell what's going on in Iraq. It's hard even to make a good guess at an answer to the question we are all wondering: how is the U.S. doing? Are they establishing a regime significantly better than Saddam's, that will last?
Bush's defenders are no doubt right to point out that the media emphasizes episodes of violence, even if lots of people continue to make a living and send their kids to school just a few feet away from a violent incident. I will always remember watching the TV coverage of a tornado in my home town, Edmonton. All you could see was devastation, and my wife and I were very concerned about loved ones. Of course it turned out the tornado touched down on a very small spot, and then moved in a very thin line. Virtually all of the city had a heavy rain storm, period. Even more generally, I believe that the better you know a story, the more disappointed you will be with the coverage of it.
On the other hand, it is a bit ridiculous for Congresswomen including Carolyn McCarthy, (link via Instapundit) and Sue Kelly to return from their trip saying how great everything is in Iraq, when it turns out they spent their nights in Kuwait. It's a great place, really, and the security is as good as I've seen anywhere--of course, Americans dare not spend the night in Iraq, or go out after dark--and this was before the bombing at the hotel that is pretty much an American headquarters.
(Correction: On Sunday, Oct. 26, the Al Rasheed hotel, where many Americans live, was attacked with missiles; an American colonel was killed and 15 people were wounded--11 of them Americans. Paul Wolfowitz, although apparently not the target of the attack, was sleeping on the 13th floor, just above the damage. On Sunday, Oct. 12, there was a suicide bombing just outside the Baghdad Hotel, which is more plausibly described as a "headquarters" for both the Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority. Seven people other than the bomber were killed, and over 30 were wounded, but the bomb did not reach the building. The delegation of U.S. Congresswomen to which I refer was in Iraq Oct. 23 and 24).
Update: Donald Evans, Bush's Secretary of Commerce, also spent a day or so in Iraq, careful to spend the night in Kuwait, and then gave glowing reports on the state of Iraq.
We have a Senator staying in Kuwait, while reporting on Iraq, here.
John Derbyshire on The Corner, a defender of the Bush policy, provides support for the analogy between Iraq under U.S. occupation and Northern Ireland during "the troubles." The occupying power is unable to completely stop incidents of violence, and has no desire to practice "scorched earth" tactics that might really subdue an entire population. On the other hand, the violence might be something they can live with--"an acceptable level of violence," although they can never say this in public.
According to Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail, a tougher approach is recommended by Mouwafak al-Rabii, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. He critizes the Coalition Provisional Authority as follows: "'I think they wanted to appease this [Sunni] triangle,' he says. But nothing will appease the fundamentalists. It's not possible to find common ground with them. Instead they must be rooted out. 'You have to crush them, and crush them really hard. You have to kill them before they kill you. You have to be prepared to kill some innocent people.'"
He is apparently emerging as a true leader in Iraq: "Some people say that Dr. al-Rabii, a moderate Shiite who spent many years exiled in London, is a good candidate to be the first democratically elected president of Iraq." My question: what happened to Ahmed Chalabi?
George F. Will said on TV a few Sundays ago that the correct analogy is not to Vietnam, but to Algeria during the last years of French occupation. Hardly a hopeful argument given the outcome, but Will was trying to stress that there is no jungle for the enemy to hide in, and no hostile super-powers waiting to help that enemy in various ways.
(Maybe I'm mistating Will's views. He's not very optimistic here--and indeed he questions Condeleeza Rice's optimism.)
(Wow. It was hard to get that link to work. The Washington Post builds in some code about "notFound" to send you to their main "who are you" kind of page. Problem solved, I think.)
(I posted something on various analogies for Iraq before).
If there is analogy to Vietnam, it may be to Vietnam in the mid-50s--the time of The Quiet American. Things might go a lot better in the future than they are going today. W. has always been fortunate--virtually every day of his life--and he may be fortunate again. Certainly it is beginning to look as though he will win the presidential election in 2004. On the other hand, things could go much worse in Iraq in the future.
I'm tempted to say that if the Bush people are correct in their analysis, and there is a large international terrorist movement to contend with, then the invasion of Iraq may have been a serious mistake--not only a distraction from the larger war, but one that can now become a growing battlefield in that war. On the other hand, if their analysis is wrong, then the problem really is Iraq itself. The presence of "outsiders" should never amount to much, and there is some reason to hope that Iraqis will see progress, and support it.
The pessimistic view--that the most radical Moslems are using the U.S. invasion as the new focus for hating the "infidel," that more and more Moslem clerics are taking the same line as Bin Laden, and that significant numbers of "outsiders" are arriving in Iraq to fight the Americans--is well expressed here.
There is one big problem for those who are optimistic that a new Conservative Party, resulting from the merger of the PC and Alliance parties, might actually hurt the Liberals. (I'm not sure Colby Cosh is in this category, but I'll link to him again anyway). It is true that the non-Liberal, somewhere-possibly-to-the-right vote was split in the 2000 election, and that helped the Liberals, especially in Ontario. But it is also true that the Quebec vote was split, with most [Update: oops, should have said about half--the Libs have picked up 2 since the election] of the seats there continuing to go to a separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois.
(As of September 12 of this year, the Liberals held 37 seats in Quebec, the Bloc 34, the Tories 1).
No one expects that situation to continue--everyone expects the Liberals led by Paul Martin to win a lot of seats in Quebec--so any gains the Conservatives make in Ontario are likely to be more than cancelled out.
In the 2000 election, the Alliance actually won more votes in Quebec than the old Progressive Conservative Party, which harks back to John A. Macdonald and his partnership with Georges Cartier. The Alliance won just over 200,000 votes in Quebec; the PCs, just under 200,000--out of about 4.5 million votes cast in that province.
In Ontario, by contrast, with about the same number of ballots cast (despite Ontario's larger population), the Alliance and PCs between them collected about 1.7 million votes-- not too far from a third of the total for this province. That is what keeps the organizers of the merger going.
I was moved to look some of this up when I read Lysiane Gagnon in the Globe and Mail today: the (Anglophone) right has no chance in Quebec, etc.
I won't question her reading of Quebec, but I'll raise some questions:
1. What's so francophone about Paul Martin?
2. How does Gagnon explain Mulroney's two majorities, both depending partly or largely on Quebec? She says simply that they happened because of an "exceptional combination of factors", that "cannot" be repeated. Huh?
3. Going back farther, can she explain Diefenbaker winning a lot of seats there in the 50s (admittedly, a long time ago)?
4. Jean Charest has gone from federal Tory minister, to federal Tory leader in the 1997 election (campaigning on tax cuts), to Quebec Liberal leader and Premier (working to make the public sector smaller). Is it so impossible that he could lead a federal Conservative party?
See also Chantal Hebert in the Toronto Star. She can't think of any Conservative leader who will do well in Quebec. She says Charest now has "the Liberal machine" on his side, and the attempt to run as a Tory at the federal level would be seen as a betrayal.
Ralph Klein, Premier of Alberta, has been openly gung ho about the idea of Charest as a federal Tory (again).
Update: another piece by Hebert says the Bloc Quebecois will do worse against Martin than it did against Chretien. "Nor can it expect to pick up the votes that went to the Action d????mocratique in the provincial campaign. The conservative-minded ADQ supporters are more likely to be attracted by Martin than by Gilles Duceppe. (Note to Harris fans: The Adequistes massively hail from the francophone areas of the province; places where one simply does not back a non-Quebec English-only leader over a native son.)"
The ADQ created a lot of excitement in the last Quebec election, although in the end their main accomplishment may have been to draw off enough "nationalist" vote from the Parti Quebecois so that the Liberals could win some francophone ridings. The ADQ platform was economically conservative: drastic tax cuts, outsourcing (including in health care), etc.
It looks more and more as though the biggest obstacle to the proposed merger of the Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties is the "Red Tories."
Graham Fraser writes in the Toronto Star that Stephen Harper's little joke that the merger would be a civil union, not a marriage, reminds people of a range of disagreements on "social issues."
Haper said: "It's not a marriage, it's a civil union."
Fraser reports: "Now, Harper is appealing to the churches to oppose same-sex marriage--and his justice critic, Vic Toews, has said that Tories who are uncomfortable with these divisive tactics can vote against the merger."
"'This calls everything into question,' one veteran Tory said to me. "Where are they going on women's reproductive freedom? What of the gains the country has made on pay equity? Is that gone? Are we or Parliament going to vote on capital punishment again? On bilingualism, a close reading (of the merger agreement) shows that the dots don't connect. This deal would take us back to pre-1988 Mulroney reforms.'
"So the same-sex marriage debate, to which Harper referred so flippantly, may become a symbolic fault line in the merger debate over the weeks to come.
"The division itself will not go away and, as Hugh Segal of the Institute for Research on Public Policy (and a federal Tory leadership candidate in 1998) points out, the once-united Progressive Conservative party was always vulnerable to being split on divisive social questions. Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau was highly skilled in using bilingualism to drive a wedge through the Tory party."
Op eds have appeared by Sinclair Stevens (once known as "Sinc the Slasher" for his determination to cut government spending) and others. See summary here.
As with the last third or so of Dalton Camp's life, the question arises: if the Red Tories are mainly determined to show they are "progressive," how do they differ from the Liberals or the NDP?
John Ibbitson mentions several possible candidates for leader of the new party (mainly Stephen Harper and former Ontario premier Mike Harris) and says:
"In all of these names, there is not to be found a single champion from the Progressive wing of the party, confirming that this merger truly is a friendly takeover of the Tories by the Alliance. And this truly does spell the end of communitarian conservatism in this country.
"Red Tories, we sometimes call them. They share with democratic socialists the belief that government must, first and foremost, ensure the health of the community. The best way to do this, they think, is to prevent excessive disparities in wealth, and to limit the ability of the private sector to act capriciously when those actions affect jobs, neighbourhoods or the environment.
"Communitarian conservatives differ from democratic socialists in their (reluctant) willingness to leave the private sector alone, as long as it doesn't bother anybody, and their sentimental affection for the traditions and institutions that shape the country. While socialists are genuinely egalitarian, Red Tories accept egalitarian measures from a sense of noblesse oblige.
"Neither the communitarian conservatives nor the democratic socialists have any time for libertarians, who celebrate equality of opportunity over uniformity of result, and who place the individual and his or her rights at the centre of the political universe.
"Both Stephen Harper and Mike Harris are firm libertarians. Mr. Harris is even more libertarian than Mr. Harper, in that the former premier keeps his distance from social conservatives: He believes the state should have as little place as possible in either the bedrooms or the boardrooms of the nation. Mr. Harper, on the other hand, gives a sympathetic ear to those economic libertarian/social conservatives who want freedom to do what they want, while bossing you around."
There's a lot of truth to this. I still think that for Tories in general, "sentimental affection for the traditions and institutions that shape the country" should come first--perhaps expressed as "recognition that the traditions and institutions of this country are successful (in contrast to many experiments around the world), they provide a "natural" way of uniting us, and getting outside of purely selfish views, and they are unique. As I have mentioned, George Grant probably got stuck with the term "Red Tory" because he believed in (sometimes) furthering Tory ends--preserving, with only minor modifications, the "old" ways--by way of socialist means.
On the other hand, if "Red Tories" are prepared to be called that partly because their love of tradition doesn't go back before 1960, what is Tory about them?
A degree of economic egalitarianism in order to ensure the "health of the community"? Maybe. I've been reading about British politics in the 19th century--when 20th-century policies and parties were being developed. In the great Irish famine, the only "party" or loosely-defined political bloc that had any strong desire to help the starving Irish was a Tory one led by Robert Peel. The hue and cry was such that the aid was half-hearted, and only provided for one year. The progressive liberals of the day were tending more and more to be doctrinaire free marketeers, (like Mouseketeers) if I can put it that way. They were totally opposed to any help to the Irish. If those responsible for farming have over-committed to potatoes, then the market must teach them to develop other crops (possibly Belgian endive, as in the Michael Dukakis story). Starvation might be exactly the event that pushes them more quickly to make rational decisions.
Update: Here is a site on the Peel government and the Irish famine that says "the Tories were liberals...." Other than this strange, possibly true remark, there is a summary that says Peel was actually defeated because of his aid to Ireland.
Supposedly an old classics-type prof at one of the old universities (Jowett at Oxford?) overheard two professors in the new and rising field of political economy. One said to the other: "There are estimates now that a million will starve. That's scarcely enough."
So, many Tories were proud of not getting caught in a wing-nut theory, taken to an extreme of inhumanity. On the other hand, there was lots of old-fashioned bloody-mindedness and religious bigotry to prevent any effective help being given. ("No wonder they're starving. They're enslaved by the priests, acting for Rome.") From what is now called the "third sector," the Quakers helped out as much as they could for a year or two, but then decided that all their efforts were a drop in the bucket, and only large-scale government action would really help. This of course was the conclusion of even more people after the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Some decades later Disraeli, a Tory Prime Minister, introduced some measures to improve working conditions in factories. I think there is a standing observation or joke that he was willing to go after factories, which were mostly owned by Whigs and Liberals--new money; but not coal mines, which were mostly owned by Tories--old money. Even as I type those words, I'm reminded of Westray....
Here is a site which gives an overview of Disraeli's career, emphasizing the "reform" or progressive, left-leaning measures of his governments.
Mostly I think Ibbitson makes the intellectual's mistake of ascribing a kind of intellectual consistency, or program, to a large number of actual flesh and blood politicians. I think George Grant used to say you can tell what book a politician last read--at about age 20--by the cliches he keeps reciting. Of course some of them keep reading--Newt Ginrich apparently read Alvin Toffler when he was well into adulthood.
Ibbitson also says that some Red Tories would actually be comfortable with the NDP. David Macdonald was PC MP in the 70s--the only elected member of any Canadian legislature who opposed Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act. He ran for the NDP in 1997. There may be other examples. Many Tories might prefer the Liberals to the "social conservatives."
This is the great problem with Colby Cosh's projection that a "united" Conservative party might have won all the votes given to either of the two parties separately. In 2000, everything else being equal, this would have limited the Liberals to a minority.
But there was probably nothing that would have made all PC and Alliance voters vote for one party then. And there is probably nothing that will achieve that now. In the "old" Progressive Conservative party, pre-Reform and Alliance, the "social conservatives" would grudgingly go along as the "progressives" kept saying: "We have to keep up with change in order to win elections. And by the way, some of this change isn't so bad." Libertarians were an awkward fit with either group. Now that the social conservatives combined with libertarians are likely to be in the driver's seat, it is the progressives who are out--and they are unlikely to join the new party. Their numbers--progressives who have remained PC--may not be great, but they might prevent the new party from getting ahead.
Michael Kinsley makes at least one good point in his critique of President Bush's stem cell policy. (See also here. Kinsley has admitted he has a vested interest in that he has a disease--Parkinson's--that might be treated by stem cells).
A number of fertilized human eggs--embryos--are created in fertility clinics all the time. Relatively few are implanted, and even fewer survive in the womb. This means the vast majority of these embryos are destroyed on a routine basis--or are treated as if they can be destroyed simply at the wish of the "patient"--the previously infertile would-be parent.
Very few people make any complaint about that. President Bush has not only not complained, he has praised the work of fertility clinics even though, with today's technology, the mass destruction of many embryos is an inevitable result of that work. Yet he resists developing new lines of stem cells from embryos, and in principle he resists abortion on demand, because he cannot condone the taking of innocent human life.
How many embryos are there in fertility clinics? Estimates in 2001 said 200,000 were being "held" in fertility clinics in the U.S. alone, but there is plenty of evidence that embryos are destroyed by the dozens all the time.
No doubt there are some pro-lifers who have not really given up on this fight. But one can see how tough it is politically. Parents (sometimes) after long waits, and enormous sacrifice, get to bring a baby home. How can one resist that? Even if it's true that researchers support fertility clinics mainly as a source of embryos and stem cells, isn't this technology doing a lot of good?
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit likes to point out that early dire predictions about "test-tube" babies--they would never be truly accepted, etc.--have not come true. Or is it rather that there are so many more or less homeless children now, cast adrift by divorce, single parenthood, etc., that test tube babies don't stand out?
The American Constitutional Law class is going very well.
One student put me on the spot on Thursday by asking about the Schiavo case in Florida. I had done some reading, and even posted on the blog about it, but I wasn't sure it was relevant to the course. Hasn't there been a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the right to die? he asked. Indeed there has; and there is also an Act of Congress that covers some of these matters. I will have to learn more.
We spent a week on "Congress," a week on the Presidency, and a week on War Powers and Foreign Policy, which brings out more aspects of the tension between President and Congress (and seems to leave the states, and sometimes individual rights, in the shadows). Along the way we looked at some details on Clinton and Nixon (impeachment and coming within a whisker of impeachment). I read to them a bit from a web site to cover Andrew Johnson (1st presidential impeachment; Johnson like Clinton served out his term). Going a bit astray, I read a bit from the great biography of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James. In the nullification, Jackson made it clear he would raise troops, even in states that were threatening to secede, and prevent any state from threatening the union. He hoped Congress would meet in time to ratify all this, but if not, he would act alone. Clear anticipations of Lincoln in the Civil War. In fact, as with so many episodes in which the South acted up (even the long-ago Alien and Sedition issue), one suspects that slavery and race were the real or underlying issues.
In connection with War Powers, I presented some of the results of the big Congressional votes on Gulf War II. October 2002 (President can deploy troops, Iraq, but not necessarily "war"): Senate Yes for Bush 77, No 23. House 296 Yes, 133 No. October 2003 ($87 billion, yes billion, for Iraq): Senate 87Y, 12N, 1 No Vote; House 303, 125.
The lonely 12 Senators who voted "no" on the money: Boxer (CA), Byrd (WV), Edwards (NC), Graham (FL), Harkin (IA), Hollings (SC), Jeffords (VT), Kennedy (MA), Kerry (MA), Lautenberg (NF), Leahy (VT), Sarbanes (MD). Of these, the only ones who had voted "Yes" a year earlier on the broad resolution, and have now voted "No" on the money, are Harkin and Hollings, along with Edwards and Kerry--the latter two being presidential candidates. This seems a risk for these two. (Lautenberg was not a Senator in 2002). It is one thing to object to the invasion of Iraq; but once the U.S. is so fully committed, to refuse the money to continue? And go on record against a war that may be popular?
In the House, Gephardt voted Yes both times; Kucinich voted No both times.
Do I actually talk about the textbook, and U.S. Supreme Court cases? Oh yes.
Terry Schiavo, aged 39, has had her feedings stopped by court order. It is not clear how long it will take her to die; it has been six days so far. She suffered brain damage after a heart attack in 1990.
[Update: Governor Jeb Bush of Florida managed to get the state legislature to pass a bill to resume Terry's feedings. This bill, in turn, will be challenged in court.]
Her husband, who has long since started a new life with another woman whom he has not married, but with whom he has one child and is expecting another, has sought to "end all treatment" of his wife, and "allow her to die" as he says she would have wished. Her parents claim that she is responsive, albeit severely disabled, and they have some hope that some therapy might actually improve her condition, if only marginally.
Michael Schiavo claims, with some support from physicians, that his wife is in a "persistent vegetative state." The text book definition includes: there are periods of wakefulness (unlike a coma), but no real consciousness (hence no pain) and no response to the environment.
All such cases remind me of our daughter, who is now 15. One of the specialists who treated her in Minnesota, shortly after her birth, spoke to us once about the Nancy Curzon case. [Oops. Check spelling below] He said that in his considerable experience, including work in intensive care, with accident victims and dying patients, he had probably never seen a true case of PVS. (He certainly didn't think our daughter was such a case, although her awareness is obviously quite limited). With Curzon being moved to Minnesota in order to stop her feeding, he was worried that PVS was being used as a diagnosis that would allow someone to be killed. He was also worried that Minnesota might become a dumping ground for such cases.[Update: it was Christine Busalacchi, also from Missouri, whose father intended to move her to Minnesota in order to discontinue feedings. There may have been even more doubt in her case than in Curzan's that she was in a "persistent vegetative state," and there was evidence that she could actually be fed by mouth. Nevertheless, all feedings were stopped and she died--in Missouri.]
Update: The Nancy Cruzan case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990. Summary from the PBS Frontline transcript: "TIM O'BRIEN, ABC News: The Supreme Court ruled today the Cruzans had no Constitutional right to remove their daughter's feeding tube, rather states have the right to insist on clear and convincing evidence it's what the victim would want. Chief Justice William Rehnquist said the parents' wishes were outweighed by the state's interest in the preservation and protection of human life and the state's right to guard against potential abuse."
Based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision, a Missouri court could grant the legal guardian the right to end Nancy's feedings, provided there was "clear and convincing evidence of the patient's wishes." Several people testified that Nancy would not have wanted to live as she was, and the right to cease feeding (and hydration) was granted.
It took Nancy 12 or 13 days to die, in December of 1990, after her feeding tube was disconnected. She died in Missouri, her home state, not Minnesota. Another web site points out: "The case concerns artificially administered (via feeding tube) nutrition and hydration, not life-sustaining medication or artificial breathing support. Medical ethicists often regard turning off nutrition/hydration as more questionable step than turning off a ventilator, say, because patients can sometimes breathe without aid from a machine, but no one can survive without food and fluids."
Karen Anne Quindlan continued to breathe after the ventilator was turned off. Her case was decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1976 (the U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal), which said Karen's right to privacy in making decisions on medical care extended to her legal guardian when she was unable to speak. "Karen Quinlan's parents did remove her from the respirator thinking this would allow her to die. However, she did not die. In fact she lived in a persistive vegetative state until 1985, when she died of pneumonia."
It seems only human to wish that such cases never arose, and when they do, to wish for them to end quickly.
I have found an article by Chris Borthwick (I've never heard of him before) that says the PVS diagnosis was always murky at best: how does one prove lack of consciousness? and there has been an effort to make it even murkier, while making it available to more patients or families: someone can be diagnosed this way either if they are unlikely ever to have true consciousness, or if they are most likely to be severely disabled.
I think there is a strong public sense that too many people are kept alive by modern medicine; it is like Frankenstein, etc. It is certainly possible that many benefits could flow if some apparently ethical way could be found of killing people who would otherwise require long, difficult and expensive care. One point Borthwick makes is that it helps the case for abortion on demand to point out that there are human beings who have no consciousness, are not sentient, and feel no pain, of whom it would be wrong to say they have a "right to life."
"The difficulty is that the Multi-Society Task Force is not willing to admit to the public - are perhaps not prepared to admit to themselves - that these benefits may have attached costs. They would seem to believe, perhaps rightly, that if they concede any considerable degree of uncertainty in the situation of PVS patients they will not be permitted to bring these benefits about. This means that any such gains - the reassurance of families, the status of physicians, the arguments of ethicists, the reform of hospital budgeting - are effective only because they are founded on lies. The truth is that none of these benefits can be obtained without taking a high risk that some people who are or will become conscious and aware will be treated as if they were irretrevably insentient."
One patient who was diagnosed as PVS, and who had indeed said in her healthy days that people should not be kept alive when they are severely disabled, eventually recovered full consciousness, and even the ability to speak. She then said she had changed her mind--we shouldn't be too quick to end the lives of people who can't speak for themselves. One expert then went to the trouble of saying that even a patient who speaks clearly and lucidly might still be an example of PVS. As Borthwick says, this is beautifully Monty Python.
My wife and I have long since given up any hope that our daughter's condition is going to improve. Nevertheless, it has always been clear that she responds to pain or discomfort (less so to pleasure), and when she is comfortable she seems clearly aware of her surroundings, and even curious about them. Reports suggest that Terri Schiavo shows even more awareness than that.
It seems to me that the people going to great lengths to ensure that she dies (probably painfully) are thinking of ending their own discomfort at least as much as hers.
Update: Dahlia Lithwick says in Slate that U.S. law is clear: a patient can refuse any treatment, and leave a living will for situations where the patient is unable to speak. A legal guardian has the same right as the patient him/herself to refuse treatment. Letting someone else override the legal guardian simply raises more issues as to who has medical competence, etc.
"The only issue on the table is who best knows what you'd have wanted for yourself. The courts must conduct a thorough inquiry to that end--is this guardian fit? Is he in fact expressing the patient's wishes for herself? Is her medical condition indeed irreversible? In this [Schiavo]case, the courts have done all this. Medical experts have spoken. Michael Schiavo was not given this decision cavalierly. It was given him as his wife's partner and caretaker, someone she took until death do us part."
My question: doesn't it make a difference if the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state is always murky?
Update: Thank you, Mickey Kaus, for strongly suggesting that there are probably decent and intelligent people on both sides of this debate. Kaus complains about an NPR broadcast that suggested all the good people are on the "husband's side," not the "anti-death" side.
The leaders of Canada's two small-c conservative parties have agreed to merge the parties, subject to agreement by the membership of the two parties.
The Reform Party began in 1984, founded by Preston Manning as a true grass-roots movement, with its strongest base in Alberta. When the party did not seem to be succeeding in gaining enough votes east of Manitoba to be a truly national party, Manning guided the process to change
into the Alliance party. Manning had clearly anticipated that he would once again be the leader, but he was defeated in a leadership race by Stockwell Day.
In 2000, the Alliance won far more votes in Ontario than the Progressive Conservatives (roughly 1 million vs. 642,000), but only two seats--their only seats east of Manitoba. Polls and fund-raisers are apparently unanimous that the trends were down rather than up. Day was forced out of the leadership after a short time, and was succeeded by Stephen Harper, one of the two leaders who has negotiated the new deal.
Reform was founded as a Western and grass-roots reaction against Brian Mulroney, and against Ottawa, the domination of Canadian politics by Quebec, the uncontrolled growth of the welfare state, rampant deficits, and the tendency of governments to make major decisions without consulting voters. They favoured: spending cuts and elimination of the deficit (they probably influenced the Liberal government after 1993 to adopt these policies); treating Quebec like any other province, and stating that the rest of Canada would not necessarily accept the result of a Quebec referendum on separatism (remarkably, the latter point too became Liberal policy); the use of referenda to ensure the voters decide major issues (there was a national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord on the Constitution; Mulroney lost); and some "social conservative" measures, including restricting immigration.
The Progressive Conservative party likes to say that it is as old as Canada. John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister after Confederation in 1867, was a Conservative, and his party dominated national politics until World War I. The conscription issue in that war painted the Tories as "anti-Quebec," and they have struggled to win seats in that province ever since. With the Liberals winning at least a good share of seats in Quebec as well as Ontario, there was a tendency for Liberals to win every federal election.
R.B. Bennett won for the Tories in 1930, and got blamed for doing nothing about the Great Depression--like Hoover in the U.S. Arthur Meighen became a great national figure as Tory leader, but campaigned against Mackenzie King almost entirely in vain. Diefenbaker won a record landslide in 1958, including most of the seats in Quebec--I don't think anyone has ever figured out why. Mulroney won a huge landslide in 1984, and another (lesser) majority in 1988.
Otherwise, except for a few short-lived minority governments, Canada has had Liberal governments.
The Liberals now dominate the scene to an extent that would have been hard to believe before 1993. The Liberals have still not won more than 50% of the vote, so the combined vote of all other parties can seem an impressive total. Yet the other parties are all confined to specific regions or pockets, which means they have hit a ceiling beyond which it is almost impossible to go. The PCs since 1993 have had far fewer seats than the Reform/Alliance (now 15 PC seats vs. 63 Alliance, out of a total of 301), and in 2000 they won far fewer votes (roughly 1.5 million for the PCs, vs. 3.3 million for Alliance; almost 13 million ballots cast in total). They are fairly strong in the few seats they won in Atlantic Canada. They won one seat in Quebec. They won Joe Clark's seat in Calgary. And that's about it.
The two parties have apparently been told that if they don't combine and cooperate, there will be few corporate donations available for either of them. Polls show both of them being decimated by the relatively right-wing Paul Martin as soon as the next federal election takes place--possibly as soon as April 2004.
In a way the marriage makes sense. Many Reformers were the country cousins in the PC Party before 1984. Many, indeed, can trace their roots to "Diefenbaker Tories"--those Tories who remained loyal to Dief after much of his national support collapsed.
On the other hand, the PC Party is not particularly right-wing--either on economic or social issues. Indeed it is difficult to think of anything in particular that it stands for. For a while when Joe Clark and then Brian Mulroney was the leader, it seemed there might be a distinct approach to Quebec and federalism--more friendly to the provinces, and to Quebec nationalism as long as it is not separatist. Unfortunately, bitter experience shows there either are no true Quebec nationalists who are not separatists, or they are people who belong in jail.
The Liberal approach: we will improve Canada, including developing bilingualism, and Quebec can take it or leave it--is actually working. It was probably toughened up a bit by adopting from Reform/Alliance, and passing the Unity Bill.
Social conservatism appears to have little political momentum in Canada. More precisely: yes, there are some rural ridings where same sex marriage is very important. But win an election over it? Not likely.
David Orchard has run for the leadership of the PC Party twice. He claims, with some justification, that in fact the party has never been consistently "right wing"--rather, it has typically been "Red Tory"--willing to adopt liberal and even socialist policies for the common good. The Macdonald government in the 19th century built a national railroad with government subsidies among other measures. There was a sense that if the country was not united east to west, it would be fragmented into distinct pieces each of which would have a north-south orientation. The Tory government of Robert Borden saved failing railroads by founding another national railroad, the CNR, which would remain publicly owned for decades. R.B. Bennett founded the CBC.
Diefenbaker was praised by George Grant for seeing that in order for Canadian identity to mean anything, it had to be preserved against the most powerful threat--which, by the 1960s, was clearly the United States. Grant said an intelligent Tory must be willing to use "socialist means" to achieve "conservative ends." This is probably the origin of the phrase "Red Tory," but most people who use it simply mean: let's not stand out from the usual intellectual liberals and social democrats. Orchard wants to question, if not reverse, free trade, and he wants some strong environmental measures.
It seems that conservatives give up on being truly conservative sooner or later. Fred Barnes has written in the Weekly Standard that Schwarzenegger's election shows that a realignment has taken place in favour of the Republicans; but this is a Republican who sounds (in more ways than one) like Bill Clinton.
The terms of the agreement to form a new party: here.
There is a reference to "progressive social policy," and the environment, but also to "freedom to pursue enlightened and legitimate self-interest within a competitive economy," "the freedom of individual Canadians to enjoy the fruits of their labour to the greatest possible extent," and the right to own property.
Colby Cosh, who has been almost alone in noting that the Alliance was quite successful, is not pleased at recent events.
The Toronto Star is on Cloud 9, practically proclaiming that with the Liberal victory in Ontario, and now this, the right is dead in Canada. B.C. and Quebec both have recently-elected governments committed to drastic cuts in taxes and spending. The Quebec Premier, Jean Charest, was federal Tory leader in 1997, when he ran a bit half-heartedly on a platform of tax cuts. Now he is seen by some as a very promising leader for the new Conservative Party.
Paul Martin has been chosen leader of the Liberal Party, which holds a majority of seats in the House of Commons? Has he become Prime Minister? No. The Party chose a system to allow participation of many party members--one vote by internet in September, then another, if needed, during a traditional convention in November. Martin won the first vote by such a wide margin, it is all over. The convention will be a formality (and will be very poor TV, I'm guessing). Even more remarkable, the outgoing Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, announced a long time ago that he isn't stepping down until February.
This seems to be Chretien's last petty act of revenge against Martin. Chretien beat Martin for the leadership in 1990. Even though he made Martin Minister of Finance, and kept him in that role until last year, he always seems to have regarded him as a second-rater. They are both more wealthy than the average by now. Martin made sure to make excellent money in the private sector before he entered public life. Chretien has had very little career outside of public life, but he had a best-selling book about the first half or so of his career, and he practised law for a few years while John Turner was leader of the party.
What will change with Martin as leader? On economic issues, he will be somewhat more to the right than Chretien. He has just announced that one of his first actions will be a major spending cut, and this goes with a determination to keep down both taxes and spending, build up a surplus, and pay off debt. On the other hand, he wants to spend money to reduce waiting lists for critical medical procedures, and on "a bold attempt to eradicate native poverty." He has promised to dedicate part of the national gasoline tax to "cities"--primarily, I guess, Montreal and Toronto.
Chretien gave a major speech a few weeks ago urging that the next federal government launch major spending programs on both infrastructure and social programs. (He was endorsing recommendations that focussed, once again, on cities). He said major tax cuts will be impossible if his advice is followed on spending, and he came close to saying: don't worry about deficits. Chretien said this agenda is still different from "promising all things to all people," and some Martin supporters actually had a spin suggesting that the spending proposals endorsed by Chretien won't actually cost all that much. So they might not be so far apart, but they are still read as "Chretien to the left" (at least in his heart, or when he is campaigning), "Martin to the right."
Besides his "fiscally conservative" position, and his commitments on health care and the cities, Martin has made some promises on the sympbolic or instititututional front: democratization of Parliament (especially relaxed party discipline), and friendlier relations with the Bush Administration.
A bit earlier, in August, Chretien spoke to his caucus on what he sees as his major recent accomplishments. Highlights: world events: involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. "We said we would double development assistance by the year 2010. And we have allocated the resources to do it. We promised to eliminate tariffs and quotas on products from least developed countries. We have done it. We promised to strengthen our military. And we did it with an increase in the budget of almost a billion dollars a year."
Others: a new agreement with First Ministers (mainly provincial premiers) on health care (with more dollars); expansion of the National Child Benefit; action on Kyoto/climate change; spending on research and cities, and action on corporate governance. The new bill he emphasized for Fall 2003 was on de-criminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Then Chretien spoke on "same sex marriage":
"Circumstances demand that we deal with the issue now because of very recent court decisions based on the Charter of Rights. The Canadian Alliance has attacked the courts for years. They attack so-called judicial activism. It is code for their profound opposition to the Charter of Rights. A Charter that was passed by Parliament and that Liberals and all Canadians respect and cherish. So let us not fall into their trap on this issue. This is not about weakening Parliament. It is not about weakening traditional religion. It is not about weakening the Canadian social fabric. In fact, it is about giving Parliament its rightful voice. It is about protecting religious traditions and rites. It is about giving force and effect to Canadian values. Values of mutual respect, justice and equality."
Chretien has told the media that he has found this issue personally difficultl--he is in some ways, I guess, an old-fashioned Catholic. Martin has said something similar; I doubt that his actions will be any different.
As an aside: there is a tendency not only for Canadian Prime Ministers to be Catholics (who are not known for "socially conservative" policies), but for all the individuals who have any real chance of becoming PM to be Catholic, as well. People used to say Canada's population was about 40% Catholic. This would count a lot of Quebeckers, who actually stopped going to church about 40 years ago. (What do they say in New York and Chicago? Cultural Catholics?) No matter how you slice it, however, Canada is demographically more Catholic than the U.S. What difference does this make? Does it help explain the stronger presence of European-style social democracy here?
Chretien and Martin are both Catholics of some kind. Chretien ran twice for the leadership against John Turner, a Catholic, losing once and winning once. Joe Clark is a Catholic who has been leader of the Progressive Conservative party twice--in the 70s and 80s, and again very recently. Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993, is a Catholic, and so is Jean Charest, who was Tory leader from 1993 until 1998.
It's as if Mario Cuomo in 1992 was a shoo-in for his party's nomination, if not for the presidency, instead of being characterized as so clearly a Northeastern liberal as to be unelectable.
The two small-c conservative party leaders, who will be featured, in the next blog, are not Catholics. Neither appears to have any hope of becoming Prime Minister.
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