You know the story, Keith Moon infamously declares that the New Yardbirds would go over like a lead Zeppelin. A quick name change to Led Zeppelin and the rest is history.
I am wondering if the same thing happened last night at the Liberal Convention. The keynote speaker last night was Michael Ignatieff, a civil rights lawyer and professor at Harvard, who is also touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party. The section of the speech on Canadian-US relations and especially BMD brought out the Keith Moons last night.
...As Canadians, we face a geo-political reality unlike any other country. The greatest challenge to our sovereignty comes not from our enemies, but from our best friend. Canadian-American relations are the central issue of Canadian politics in the next generation. Here too, Canadian Liberals need to understand when to say NO, and when to say Yes.
Liberals have always said No to anti-Americanism. Leave that to the NDP. Anti-Americanism is an electoral ghetto. Leave them to wither inside it. At the same time, Liberals have always said NO to continentalism. Leave other parties to sing “When Irish eyes are smiling” with US Presidents.
If only this were true! anti-Americanism has become the calling card of practically the entire left vote, be it NDP, Bloq Quebecois or a significant portion of, if not majority of the Liberal Party.
...Being anti-American is a lousy way to be a proud Canadian. A superiority complex towards our neighbor is as foolish as an inferiority complex.
Bravo!
...Our identity is perfectly secure and it is rooted in our institutions: Parliamentary government, la langue et la culture française, our aboriginal heritage, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have always done things differently here. We always will.
Huh...I will grant you we have these things but what does it mean to someone who isn't in government, not in Quebec and is not Native? This is hardly a "Canadian Identity".
...We have never been afraid to chart our own course in world affairs: in the first half of the last century, fighting for European freedom in two World Wars before the Americans joined in; in the second half, recognizing Cuba and China, supporting the International Criminal Court and promoting the Land Mines Treaty. Our neighbor has respected us when we said NO, because they know that when we do say YES, our word is our bond.
Except when it isn't...ask President Bush how well he regards the word of PM Martin. Also, following your British parents, or following the French, Germans and UN is hardly your own path. You can argue that they were the right decisions be we are hardly unilaterlists. I fear you cannot define not doing what the Americans did as charting our own course, since that just brings you back to the above.
...They respect us -- and we respect ourselves -- when we back commitments with capabilities, rhetoric with resources. Liberals know that we cannot defend the sovereignty of our nation with sermons. We cannot hand our own defense to any one else. We must have our own military, our own intelligence gathering capacity, our own immigration and border controls, our own control of our air space. Sovereignty costs money.
Again, bravo!
...Liberals are willing to pay that price.
Well, not quite. See Babbling Brooks.
...Our independence depends on our being a credible partner in the struggle to keep North America safe from terrorist attack. Like it or not, we are next door to the primary target of global terrorism. We need to invest to ensure we are never a terrorist transit point or a terrorist haven.
Like it or not WE are a target. Osama bin Laden said so himself!
...People at the mercy of tyrants and gunmen need protection, first of all. To protect them, we have to have the capacity to fire back. We do not want to repeat Rwanda, when a brave Canadian soldier, Romeo Dallaire, was sent out on a UN mission to protect civilians, without the arms, equipment and troops to stop the slaughter in front of his eyes. We owe this to our men and women in uniform. We owe this to our moral commitment to be citizens of the world.
A Liberal government knows it has to balance principled commitments to be a good citizen abroad, with defense of its citizens at home.
Again,
if it were thus. We already have a repeat of Rwanda in Sudan and one can guess again in the Congo and countless other African Nations.
The government has recently announced its decision about Ballistic Missile Defense. The decision will be popular in the party. But we need clarity in our national defense policy. We need to balance a principled opposition to the weaponization of space -- in the future -- with an equally principled commitment to participate in North American defense -- right now. We do not want our decisions to fracture the command system of North American defense, - and we do not want a principled decision to result in us having less control over our national sovereignty. We must not walk away from the table. We must be there, at the table, defending what only we can defend. Let’s be clear about something else: this is not a debate between patriots and continentalists, between anti-Americans and pro-Americans. Liberals do not make their policy choices into a referendum on anyone’s patriotism still less their internationalism. The issue is how best to defend the sovereignty of our country.
Can anyone else hear the crickets...
Well he was close. I agree that our actions must meet our rhetoric. Unfortunately the Liberal Party does not live up to the rhetoric presented by Michael Ignatieff last night.
Update: Brock: On the Attack opines on Mr. Ignatieff as well. I didn't find his as compelling a speaker as he did (well it more his body language) but he noticed the bizarre reactions of the crowd as well.
