Michael Ignatieff’s Recent “Sulphur” Comments

Anyone who sees my Zoomer columns/blogs here or elsewhere knows that federally/provincially I am now/today strictly non-partisan. Strictly.

On the other hand there are occasional political events that turn on my interest switches.

As in the stenchy description last week by Liberal Leader Ignatieff of his political enemy, who is also the Prime Minister.

Let’s see what the normally dour Ignatieff has to say to a bunch of Liberal supporters at a Calgary Stampede breakfast. He is reported to have said that Canadians “can smell a whiff of sulphur” coming off/from Stephen Harper.

That’s a putrid (like putrefaction) scent/smell that smells like rotten eggs, or even worse as a human “stink”.

There is also a strong biblical connection with the smelly sulphur. It is a bad, hellacious material from the Old Testament when God rains “fire and brimstone” (i.e. sulphur) on the original City of Sin, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Apart from the biblical whiff, the fact that Ignatieff has finally said some public utterance that has truly caught the noses of odourless journalists across the land (Canada only), may well be a signal that he is coming out swinging with political lefts and rights to the nation’s voters’ olfactory senses!

Now that would be a change, wouldn’t it?

And if we’re going to have a federal election soon (heaven forbid) maybe it will be one of those knock ’em down and drag ’em out fights of days of yore. Maybe.

Anyway the stink that Ignatieff has raised with his smell of sulphur shot will probably follow him on his upcoming bus tour across Canada where he’ll meet and kiss lots of sulphuric babies and their like-minded parents.

Actually it will be interesting to see how long a man of his cerebral academic cloistered background/life can stand this humdrum, every day meeting with common Canadians before he throws in the towel — or diaper. If his bus doesn`t break down again.

From the biblical point of view he will have a devil of a time if he does the whole trip — or if he doesn’t.

What the media will now expect of Ignatieff is that he (and his speech writers) will regularly come up with new sulphuric but learned sound bites about the Prime Minister. And his choicest ministers of the crown whose careers are odious even in the slightest will be fair game for acid (yes – sulphuric) comments of overarching stench.

Generally speaking, it’s encouraging for us Zoomers to know that federal politics across Canada is about to discover that the Liberal leader is no lickspittler but is actually a scentless, political fighting cock (or a bird like one).