The latest NDP antics - Political theater at its most amateurish

I am almost incontinent with delight over the current NDP debacle. If this makes me a bad person, then I'm the devil incarnate.

First of all, I am no political animal. My field of expertise is tax-paying. When I see happening what I see happening from time to time, among people for whom I not only pay salaries, but in one instance, have representing me in the House of Assembly, then up upon my high horse I get, and out comes the laptop.

The side story to the headline of Lorraine Michael's current woes is this:

I am sick-sick-sick-sick-sick and tired-tired-tired-tired-tired and fed up-fed up-fed up-fed up-fed up with having to listen to the supposedly all-knowing news media types do everything within their power to ruin Kathy Dunderdale. And what has she done to deserve this censure? Well, let's see...

 - She's negotiating the best deal for Muskrat Falls that she can get for this province, knowing full well that what is agreed upon will positively affect our children's children's children. This is the polar opposite of what Joey did vis a vis Churchill Falls. What he did positively affected Quebecker's children's children's children. Not ours. For 99 years. Still burning in hell, I hope...

 - She has already, in just the past few months, settled contract negotiations with two of the major provincial unions, CUPE & NAPE, without strikes. Bravo!

They're just the two most recent big hits. I could go on, but this post is not about Kathy Dunderdale. It is about those fiesty NDP-ers, and how they're in the process of committing political suicide. Oooo, baby!!!

So, here we are, those of us who watch the news regularly, being told that Kathy Dunderdale should resign!!! They're not so swift to detail reasons beyond poll numbers, but if those being polled are being served a steady diet of "she has to go because she has poor poll numbers", then is it not reasonable to think that people will say, "Hmm, she has to go because of poor poll numbers"?? A vicious circle if ever there was one.

And all this time, here we are, believing that all must be well in the Orange Camp. They went from a sole MHA to a whopping five - a provincial political party that could still fit in a Volkswagen Beetle, assuming Lorraine is driving and George is runnin' shotgun, mind you. (I thought about using a Smart Car reference, but then thought the better of it...) But they grew! And grew and grew and grew. How can there be discontent? Kathy Dee is being hung out to dry by the media, because that's what they do to Conservatives. What's not to rejoice over? Lorraine is the ex officio media darling. Everything that happens? Sure as there's poop in a cat, there's a microphone in Lorraine's face, and she's not even the Official Opposition. A chill was surely working its way up the collective spine of those of us who might end up, one day, paying for all of the typical NDP Utopian promises. Gulp.

Then... WHOOMP!! The Email.

George Murphy, Gerry Rogers, Dale Kirby and Christopher Mitchelmore sent an email to Lorraine Michael this past Sunday, asking for a leadership review in 2014, well enough ahead of the next provincial election in 2015 to establish the victor as the accepted face of the party. This act of party disloyalty came almost straight on the heels of Ms. Michael singlehandedly increasing the NDP representation the way she did, her leadership garnering her first place in polls of political party leaders.

Dale Kirby, the purported ringleader of the mutiny, is all about doing this 'for the good of the party'. Really, Dale? Really? Was increasing the MHA representation by 400% not enough for you? If you and your partners in crime really felt this way, though, why not, then, have a meeting, a face-to-face, and discuss the future of the party over a private beer or two? Why the mutinous, not to mention cold, calculating and cowardly and media-publishable email, on the day the woman gets back from a month long vacation in India?

Now mind you, the thought of Lorraine Michael trying to negotiate an agreement on Muskrat Falls is little more than slapstick comedy to anyone with a political bone in their body. Having her wave a wand, thereby having free day-care centers on every corner and everyone on social assistance (very Obama-esque), and the remaining 10 of us paying for it all is fiction at its finest. But all of this would be no different than what any other NDP-er would promise. It's what socialists do!! That said, no one who has put themselves 'out there' in the political forum, in the public eye, deserves this. Kathy Dunderdale doesn't, and neither does Lorraine Michael. Dwight Ball, on the other hand.... No!! Just kidding, just kidding! (Sort of...)

Michael says she felt betrayed, and so she should, but that's not the best of it -

Now, all of a sudden, two or three days on, the back-stabbing has reverted to backpedaling, and two of them are at it in earnest, particularly former taxi driver / gas price announcer George Murphy, and to a lesser extent, Gerry Rogers and her well-documented left breast.

GMAFB. Amateurs, one and all. I've seen more parliamentary decorum on a school playground, deciding who's going to be on who's team.

Do these people seriously think that their apologies are going to repair their disloyal and cutthroat image now? Will falling on their swords save the party from the ridicule it so richly deserves in the wake of this? If this is the way they deal with each other, God help those of us who might be governed by them.

 George Murphy: One face of the NDP Mutineers.
Yeah, I'd hang my head in shame, too, you mislead rookie.

And there's George Murphy, saying that in his mind, it was going to be an endorsement of Michael's leadership! WOW. George, b'y, get your muffler checked. I think the gas is getting to you.

I'll give Dale Kirby credit for one thing - at least he's sticking to his guns. Christopher Mitchelmore, whoever the heck he is (I never heard of him before today) is just saying that he stands by his signature. A real rabble-rouser in the party there, wha'? Meanwhile, George Murphy looked like he was going to burst into tears on NTV News tonight, waxing effusive in his love for and admiration of Lorraine. It was embarrassing to watch. Don't get rid of your taxi license just yet, George.

One other thing that occurs to me is this... if this series of events had happened to Kathy Dunderdale, there would be wall-to-wall breaking news coverage, and you'd need dentists to dislodge the microphones from Lorraine Michael and Dwight Ball, and they'd take their time getting there. So, where are the cameras and microphones begging for Kathy Dunderdale to weigh in on her political foe's woes? Chances are good that she'd rise above the fray. It's what people who know how to behave in public do. But yet again, as always, it's very interesting to see how slanted the media really is when their darling is being challenged. Fascinating.

I think it's safe to say that Lorraine Michael's meteoric rise in the polls, to first place even, will now be a thing of the past. Even if she gets the sympathy nod in the polls, which she might, the public will not want to elect a party of people that have displayed, at the first sign of good times, malicious and damaging hijinks, almost guaranteed to decimate their party. If they do that to friends and colleagues, what the heck would they do to their enemies?!?!?!

I am delighted, of course. It's always satisfying to see chickens coming home to roost. Too bad for them that the egg they laid was so scrambled.

And that's no yolk.

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