Looks Like Ignatieff Is Going For It

Michael Ignatieff will give a 'vision speech' on Thursday in Ottawa.

The former Harvard professor and rookie Liberal MP is expected to outline his views on national unity, the economy and his controversial support of the war in Iraq in his speech on Canada and its role in the world to University of Ottawa political-science students.

The speech will be followed, either Friday or early the next week, by a formal announcement in his Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore that he wants to succeed Paul Martin as leader of the Liberal Party.

I know a lot of people don't like him for initially supporting the invasion of Iraq, but despite that position I still think he would make a very good prime minister. I would much rather have an intellectual as prime minister than a politician, if someone whom I respect has a diffreent position from me I can expect him or her to look at changing circumstances and take some reasonable action in response, this is better than having a less capable person who might happen to have the same opinions as I do.

I've always complained that politics seems to attract the worst kinds of people, businessmen wanting to dismantle regulations, busybodies looking to impose their morals on the rest of society, slimy weasels who are good at networking andcampaigning and not much else. Frankly someone who hasn't spent the last 20 years mired in the political world, but instead studying history, would be a Godsend.

There are certainly other intellectuals I would much rather see in political leadership positions, but we're not actually in a position to be choosy here.

All that said, I still think David Suzuki should giver politics a go, and not some Green Party protest gesture, either, but actually going into the heart of government and making real change. What Canadian outside of Alberta wouldn't vote for him?