Even the best politicans have bad days. They'll say something stupid, they'll let an offhand remark get caught on camera, and for a few cycles they'll be mocked by geeks who follow politics.

Then there are less experienced politicians. Former academics, noted authors - people like that. When they say something stupid, the real problem is that they think they're being clever. When they do that, you end up with headlines like this:

Ignatieff touts bird that hides feces as party icon

My parents like to call certain high-IQ, but reality-challenged people, "smart dopes." This characterization fits a lot of Iraq war supporters, but perhaps none better than Michael Ignatieff, formerly a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and supposedly recovering Iraq war hawk.

With this in mind, click immediately, do not walk or pass Go, to the Huff Post to read this hilarious and righteously vicious takedown by David Rees, of Michael Ignatieff's Sunday NY Times Magazine mea culpa on his support for the war.

More below:

This is a short diary that I felt motivated to write because another diary on here may mislead many about what Ignatieff wrote for tomorrow's NYT Magazine.

The diarist here seems to feel that this apology is too mealy-mouthed, too self-serving, too dismissive of those Ignatieff disagreed with, and not nearly contrite enough. Well, there is some of that, to be sure. Mr. Ignatieff still has a healthy ego, and I think his potshots at those who opposed Iraq for "ideological reasons" are reflections of that ego.

But there is so much more in the article worth reading. In fact, I think it's the best mea culpa yet, in that it really fingers the problems with the Bush approach, and with Bush himself. (More...)

  Michael Ignatieff is the latest to "come clean" about his conflicted emotions regarding the fiasco he supported in Iraq.  Writing in this Sunday's NYT Magazine, http://www.nytimes.com/... Ignatieff presents yet another of what have become tiresome, soul-searching masturbatory rites of passage for the war's enablers.

  "Getting Iraq Wrong" begins paragraphs with such tripe as "As a former denizen of Harvard..." and describes what Ignatieff envisions as the difference between judgment as exercised by politicians and as exercised by academics. The article meanders around aimlessly for nearly one-third its length, then somehow manages to include the obligatory potshot against the left:

"...Many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did not do so by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the President because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong."

(more over the fold)

I am sure some of you have read a couple diaries about the big Political Convention in Canada this weekend, at which Howard Dean gave the keynote speech.
For more explanation on the Convention, Liberal Convention 2006 and this diary by displacedyankeedemocrat
Its been a long wait since the last leader announced he was stepping down, after losing to the Conservatives in January 2006.
At the Canadian blog I participate in, The Next Agenda, a few of us spent the day Saturday, well into the evening at what we called a "blog party".
Saturday I felt  possibly the most excitement I have felt about politics , in a very long time.
In looking back at the day, I believe We watched history being made.

The final result was 54,7 to 45,3.

The speech will begin soon, in time for the evening news and just before the montreal-Toronto hockey game on HNIC.

There are several issues that come up:

How will he handle his caucus?
How will he improve the party in Quebec?
How will he get along with Charest?
How upset must Jack layton be, who said he had no chance?
Will Ignatieff stay?

Update: Theoretic question: what's wrong with such a convention to select the Dem nominee in 2008? It stopped Ignatieff, it might stop Hilary...

Canada's Liberal Party is in the midst of their convention and choosing their new leader. We have seen 3 ballots that have narrowed the field from 8 to 2. Now the contest is between Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

You know, sometimes the myopia of my fellow Kossacks astounds me.  As a dual citizen who's spent his life in Canada, I fully realize that American politics is the place to be.  It's important, momentous, and for the past several years, damn terrifying.  Still, sometimes something happens up in my little country that you would think would peak our communities interest, and yet lo and behold, there appears (although after a very lazy search)to be no notice whatsoever.

Please, my friends and loyal Kossacks, join me below the jump for some news on a name that puts a bad taste on many of our mouths.

Yes, I'm referring to our neighbors to the North in Canuckistan; land of hockey, poutine, smoked meat, Tim Horton's, and Molson. I lived there for a few months and thought that this might be interesting. The actual selection process will take place on December 2nd (Saturday). So here's a guide to it all.

What is the Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party is historically dominant political party in Canada, and its ideology generally falls in the center/center left of the Canadian political spectrum; here they'd be somewhere in between the center and the left wing of the Democratic Party.

The Liberal Party of Canada will be electing a new leader the end of November and the party has invited Howard Dean to be the guest speaker at the event. He has accepted and will be joining the convention in Montreal.

Already there are some ruffled feathers. I find who's pissed off quite telling.

Michael Ignatieff doesn't want him there. The Convention is about Canadians, not Americans. I suspect he is worried Dean's presense will be a reminder to the delegates that he's lived in the US for years and of his support of Bush and the war in Iraq.

Bob Rae, the other serious contender, is happy. A left leaning Liberal himself, Rae's camp have called Dean a revolutionary and praised his use of the net and the grass roots. He believes that Dean is a great choice to talk about the renewal of the Dems and that the Liberals, who are going through a renewal period themselves, would be a great audience to hear.

Canada's Liberal Party will select a new leader in early December (the weekend of the 1st to the 3rd).  The Globe and Mail/CTV news commissioned a poll of Liberal Party members (those who will be selecting the new leader) and found:

Michael Ignatieff has a slender lead among Liberals in the race to become national party leader and could well lose to Bob Rae or Stéphane Dion, both of whom possess greater potential for growth at the leadership convention

And then there were 9: Canada's Liberal Leadership Race

The number of candidates vying for leadership of Canada's Liberal Party (and presumptive Prime Ministership, in the not too distant future) dropped to nine today, with Toronto MP Carolyn Bennett dropping from the race and throwing her support behind former Ontario (NDP-) Premier Bob Rae.

More on the flipside.

Unlike the animosity the MSM shows to the blogosphere in the USA some of the "media is the message" people in Canada get it.

Susan Delacourt writing in the Toronto Star today Liberal contests starts turning into blog party notes that the candidates for the Liberal leadership contest are finding a new sphere of influence.

In two earlier posts I described the contest Dr. Carolyn Bennett: Canada's Howard Dean and Michael Ignantieff: Canada's Next Prime Minister?

More

Yesterday I asked if Carolyn Bennett... could be the next PM. And the response was underwhelming. But the site had a few problems. So I'm asking the same quesiton in a different way.

Is the Liberal Party leadership contest Canada's version of the Biggest Loser?  Is Stornaway the Prize or will a good choice return the Libs to Sussex Drive?

Who do you like? Who do you want?

Handicap the race below:

Hey, Canuckistani handicappers... time to re-ink those racing forms for the NEXT PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA.

Belinda Stronach is press conferencing, as I type, that she is out. Bob Rae is probably in, and Michael Ignatieff is very likely. The field likely to emerge tomorrow:

Clifford Blais (Quebec)
Stephane Dion (Quebec)
Hedy Fry (BC)
John Godfrey (ON)
Michael Ignatieff (ON)
Gerard Kennedy (ON)
David McGuinty (ON)
Bob Rae (ON)

First, some backstory. For the last two weeks, I had been volunteering for a Liberal MP on the West Island of Montreal, in Quebec.

In Quebec, the thing that I feel did us in for good was the Option Canada scandal (basically a pro-federalist slush fund during the '95 Quebec Separatist referendum), which broke just as I began volunteering. That scandal cemented us as having a severe culture of corruption in the province. From then on, we would never make it back above 25% in the province, and at one point, it appeared that we wwere only going to hold around 10 seats in the province (compared to 37 just a few years ago).

Some very interesting information is beginning to emerge about the candidacy of Michael Ignatieff, liberal hawk and Iraq War supporter, in the Canadian parliamentary elections.  People close to the Prime Minister, Paul Martin, are dropping hints that Ignatieff was not their choice.

 More after the fold...

Yesterday, I posted a diary about Michael Ignatieff being parachuted into my district for the upcoming parliamentary elections in Canada.  This is a guy who is being touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party.  Too many Canadians fawn all over Ignatieff because he is a Harvard professor but don't know anything about what he has written, his defence of the Iraq War and George Bush, and his musings on defining torture.  Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, was actually forced to restate the Party's position on the Iraq War because Ignatieff's views are so much at odds with the present policy of Canada.

Well, two articles today tear a stripe out of the "star" candidate.  More after the fold...