Igwatch

The fun continues.

This is well-reported, comprehensive insider stuff -- assuming it's true, that is, and we'll know within a few days [ed. update -- or minutes]. What's questionable is the framing: it's all about Ignatieff, complete with a bigass front-page photo of him looking like Brutus on his way to the Senate. As you read the article it becomes clear that everyone in the Liberal Party thinks Dion must go now, and there's a real debate about how: Ignatieff and supporters want a vote of caucus to install him as interim leader followed by the convention as planned, Bob Rae a speeded-up party vote by phone or some such. Why not just present it in those terms?

So far what's described is all perfectly rational. Dion can't go on; a flesh-and-blood convention can't be magically moved forward; and there's no upside to installing an interim figurehead. And god knows where the whole freakin' governing party of the Chretien and Martin years vanished to, but Ignatieff really does look like their most electable option now. But as we've just seen with the coalition hoohah, choosing the best of a lot of bad options can still bite you in the ass politically -- and in this case it's actually Rae's proposal that sounds the best (ie most democratic, transparent and thus legitimizing).

I wonder if Ignatieff really grasps how many people, including nice born-Liberal Ontariarians, find him viscerally distasteful. If asked why, they can always cite his little Iraq war booboo. The Ignatieff supporter can respond that that was an isolated mistake of which he's repented (sort of), and keep the conversation going. But if Ignatieff takes control by anything that looks like an undemocratic power-grab, I suspect that many, many voters will take it as probative of his character and will be gone forever.

Meanwhile, shorter Blatchford: Politics, hockey, same difference. You got a problem with that?

UPDATE: Like I say, "everyone in the Liberal Party thinks Dion must go now": that turns out to include Dion. Interesting thoughts on the tricky questions of method now facing the Liberals here and here.