In the discussion about Brian Mulroney yesterday one of the things that was mentioned was that Conservatives would be better suited focusing their fire on Iggy. This Hill Times article provides some insight into why, for partisan purposes, that approach might have value.
In the story some of the Liberals interviewed feign with great indignation the prospect of negative ads potentially being deployed against them. Of course, certain Liberals have been running viral attack ads against the government for a while now. Under the pseudonym Grit Girl some clever force has been filling the Internet with anti-government propaganda. This modern day Tokyo Rose is pretty good at flogging but not so good at disclosing. All is fair in love and war, but the Liberals should at least own up to their ads stop hiding behind Grit Girl's skirt.
Iggy himself did show some leg last week. He provided the government and the public with great ammunition about his weak-kneed approach to making tough choices. When the government signaled its intention to try and appeal the gun registry for a third time, Ignatieff took the predictable Liberal position of opposing such a repeal because the registry, according to age-old Liberal claptrap, is an effective tool in fighting crime despite its apparent $2-billion cost. You can find a good number of Liberals, including Anthony Rota and Scott Brison, who question that logic. What I found most fascinating in Ignatieff's response to that debate was the seeming acceptance of massive cost overruns for a public-policy tool with questionable successes. It is a strange position to take for someone who is trying to characterize himself as a confident fiscal manager. But then again if Grit Girl is Iggy's model of accountability, who is really surprised?