In the happy land of lowered expectations

I have to say I've never really thought much of Paul Martin. He was as good a finance minister as one could ask for, to be sure, but that's a rather non-visionary job when done well. I never understood all the talk about him succeeding Jean Chrétien. What was so great about him? What did he accomplish before becoming finance minister besides getting to know a lot of the right people in government?

I was also then thoroughly unimpressed with the way he handled Chrétien's last gasp as prime minister. It would have reflected much better on Martin just to have let the baby have his bottle for a few more months, but perhaps Chrétien knew that Martin would make himself look like a fool by fighting too hard for the job when its inevitability was already assured. A lot of people think that Chrétien didn't care much for the fate of the Liberal party that had grown up and united around the cause of getting him out of the party leadership.

So Martin skated from his very unprofessional rise to power into an election where he just looked miffed that he would have to go through such an exercise. His debate performance was very much of a man who didn't want to be there.

So after all that I was prepared to simply ignore the next four years of Canadian politics. But lately Martin has actually done a few things right. The equal marriage speech last week was definitely one. I don't know if he wrote much of it himself, but to stand there and draw the line in te sand about what's right and what's wrong, without waffling or wavering to please some block of voters who would be against the idea, was definitely a good start.

And then this week telling George W. Bush where to get off when it comes to missile defense, while a long time coming, was definitely another good move by Martin, though in this case it is my guess that he would have gone in on it were it not total political suicide to do it.

Either way, my respect for the man has gone up considerably recently, lets just hope circumstances continue to unfold so that the easiest thing for Martin to do is the right thing.
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