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The fine art of not gloating

With Layton and Harper deciding to let the girl into the tree house after all, you’d think Dion would have rubbed it in a bit. But he didn’t.

Talking to reporters in a high school library in Walkerton, Ont. this afternoon, Dion merely asked allowed why they hadn’t agreed with him all along that Elizabeth May had to be let into the TV debate. “Everybody knows the Green party represents something in this country, including Madame May,” he said simply. “So it’s good news.”

Hard to know how to interpret the moment. Did Dion display a dignified reluctance to gloat, or a lack of the necessary instinct for the jugular? Will Canadians ultimately view his restraint as prime-ministerial, or are voters waiting to see more fight in the man?

By the way, the Liberal tour chose Walkerton, for obvious reasons, for Dion’s pledge of $50 million for beefed up food-safety inspections. Poor little town: it’s name our national shorthand for ingested death.

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