Thank you Sean in Ottawa for your very rational, honest & common sense response.
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For those who are uncomfortable broaching any dissent, Rabble is not some partisan foxhole where the "insiders" are sniped at by the "outsiders". If that's what you're looking for, why not try the NDP's discussion forum where you can all agree with one another and not be subject to constant victimization.
God, one has to love those oblique silencing attacks.....
But every now and then, a PM has to throw a bone to partisans of other parties just to show "how non-partisan" they are...
Well, he was a sitting premier - not even "former", or "retired" - of the NDP when he privately was offered and accepted this "bone". You'll have to forgive people who at least question the optics of that, and his public statements in support of Harper's environmental views, especially given his praiseworthy (my opinion) commitment to Kyoto until very recent times.
It's true that in praising the tar sands, he's just acting as Harper's mouthpiece. But do we really not care what a political leader really believes? Was he "just following orders" when he ardently defended Kyoto as late as a couple of years ago? If so, whose orders? When Ignatieff drools over the sands, is this Iggy speaking, or is he just earning his salary?
These are legitimate questions to ask about the chief political leaders in our society.
Nobody's "silenced" anyone. Well, except me. I'm closing the thread, so I guess I'm the silencer. :)
