Canadian Lib-Left Dumber than US Lib-Left

Last evenings vote in the Canadian House of Commons has just proven that Canadian lib-left politicians are less bright than US lib-left politicians. You see, both were exposed to the same political trap in the past 6 months with different results in each country. Here's how it played out in the States:

GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one.

The idea was to force Democrats to go on the record on a proposal that the administration says would be equivalent to surrender. Recognizing a political trap, most Democrats -- including Murtha -- said from the start they would vote no.

But the maneuvering exposed the chamber's raw partisan divisions and prompted a tumultuous scene, which Capitol Hill veterans called among the wildest and most emotional they had ever witnessed.

And here's how it played out in Canada last evening:

OTTAWA (CP) — Canadian troops will spend two extra years fighting to bring democracy and security to Afghanistan’s most perilous corner after Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a tense political showdown over his divided opposition rivals.

A motion to extend the deployment barely passed 149 to 145 Wednesday night. The NDP, Bloc Quebecois and most Liberals, including key leadership candidates such as Stephane Dion, Ken Dryden and Joe Volpe, voted against it.

[...]

The vote is a political victory for Harper, who can characterize the result as an indication of the will of Parliament, while exposing divisions within the Liberal ranks.

Coming out of the House, Harper took a few shots at the opposition.

“I think the truth of the matter is support for the mission is a lot stronger than the vote,” Harper said. “There were a lot of people in there who just wanted to vote against the government. But certain Liberals took a principled position and Canada is much better for it.”

The vote is also likely to spell the end of the political debate on the mission, a welcome respite for the Conservatives as they prepare for the next federal election.

The lib-left reps in the US didn't take the bait whereas the lib-left reps in Canada did and it won't be good for them. Angry In The Great White North sums it up nicely:

For the Liberals, a split is forming. Michael Ignatieff and Scott Brison for the extension. Ken Dryden, Joe Volpe, Stephane Dion, Hedy Fry against. With the Conservatives achieving another parliamentary victory, there will be bitter recriminations lobbed during the Liberal leadership race. The party itself will crack violently along this fault line, and it's anyone guess what will be the end result. Meanwhile, any "Unite-the-Left" push to merge the Liberals and the NDP will be shelved until the Liberals sort this out. The NDP will not easily forgive the Liberal Party for allowing a free vote for the Liberal caucus.

For the Canadian left in general, a panic will start. If Stephen Harper can win this vote, what other votes can he win? Joining the US in developing a ballistic missile defense system? Redefining marriage as a heterosexuals-only institution? Property rights? For the left, there has been an assumption that Stephen Harper would be hobbled in a minority government. Bide their time, and at the next election in a year or so, the left would win again. The Conservatives could do little lasting damage -- lower taxes a modest amount, for example, which would be hard to increase, but most things could be rolled back. Instead, to the horror of the left, who have assumed that though they lost the election they still ruled the country, Stephen Harper is succeeding at far more substantive and transformative changes, and might continue to do so.

Stephen Taylor took the time to expose the hypocrisy of those who voted against continued deployment:

NDP MP Alexa McDonough:

"It's not a question of should we be in Afghanistan. Yes, we should, we need to be, we need to be in in the long haul." (CTV, Question Period, May 14, 2006)

Like John Kerry, our friend Alexa was for the war 3 days before she was against it. Nice.

Yesterday was not a good day all around for socialism in Canada at and it's effects will have an impact in the US. I say this because a large number of American MoonBats point to Canada as their model of the eutopian socialist paradise in progress. They're not going to be able to do that for very much longer. Canadians have begun to figure out that the "progress" we've been making has been in the wrong direction. We're changing course.