John Howard

In his chat with Postmedia last week, the Prime Minister was directly asked about how the justifications for war in Iraq compare to the justifications for war with Iran.

Patrick Muttart, one of those often credited with bringing Stephen Harper to power, turns up in a bit of American election analysis, hailed in this case as “perhaps the world’s leading expert on working-class voters in English-speaking countries.”

The Liberals made note this morning of the similarity between the title of today’s Throne Speech and the title of former Australian prime minister John Howard’s election platform in 2004. That similarity perhaps being noteworthy because of this. And this.

Abbott likes to be photographed in Speedos and called PM Kevin Rudd a ‘toxic bore’

After a decade in power, John Howard landed himself a presidential invitation to Blair House in Washington, and left his country’s diplomatic apparatus to rot. The story. The report.

Just thinking this through.

Canada—in the loose, non-specific sense—generally tends to over-react when praised or criticized by other countries. (Remember how excited we got when the Economist said we were cool? Remember how crestfallen we were when they quickly had second thoughts?) Generally this is silly.

Another allegation of plagiarism. Very little attention from the major outlets. Discuss.

I’ve cornered three plagiarists in my time, and each defended him or herself very differently. The first denied any malfeasance had occurred despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary; the second reacted quite politely, resignedly; and the third went completely mental, threatening to sue me and leaving long recitations about defamation law on my answering machine. The only generalization I can offer is that plagiarists are prone to bizarre, self-defeating arguments, including the following:

Must-reads: Rosie DiManno on the Ontario SIU; George Jonas on politicians; Dan Gardner on eight years of Bush; Lawrence Martin on Stephen Harper’s plagiarized speech.

Oh for goodness sake. I’d like to join the pile-on over Stephen Harper’s alleged plagiarism, but really…

John, like the rational veteran of Parliament Hill that he is, asks the most rational question of the day. Several more questions that are hopefully almost as rational.