Why Stephen Harper Said the Stupid Things He Said

I'm referring to the crapola he babbled whilst celebrating Israel's 60th birthday about how critics of Israel (including MPs in the House of Commons) were just anti-Semites.

Now, mocking somebody's physical attributes isn't generally an effective debating tactic. It's often a dangerous one. God knows that I'm not capable of being immune to ridicule about my looks. But in Harper's case, he's got one particular attribute that seems to reflect his ugly, cold, amoral approach to politics.

Somebody on babble once referred to Harper as a "dead-eyed cipher." And I have to agree, in some pictures, Harper appears to have the eyes of a corpse. They just sort of stare, coldly, blankly, thinking of nothing at all, whilst his body uncomfortably wobbles around in some inappropriate cowboy vest or flak jacket.

Like his eyes, Harper doesn't seem to care about very much. It's like he's going through the motions, or some sort of "process" (like decaying).

I don't think Harper is very smart. But I don't think he's as monumentally stupid (like, say a Stockwell Day or a Jim Flaherty is stupid). I certainly don't think that he's as stupid as his asinine comments about criticism of Israel made him sound.

I think that in that case, Harper was merely trying to poison the political climate. In typical Karl Rovian fashion he's trying to put the most toxic ideas he can out there, in order to establish as a given, the gutter-level politics that 21st-century "conservatism" increasingly finds unavoidable.


I don't think Harper particularly gives a shit about Israel, one way or the other. That's for the fundamentalist nutbars like Stockwell Day and his US-American counterparts among the religious right. Israel is just a political symbol for Harper. I'm not sure that it's within him to understand how this works deep down, .... he just knows that it works. It helps him by giving him red meat to throw at his political supporters ... who he doesn't care about either. And this is all to help him get and keep power in Canada, a country which he also doesn't give a shit about.


Oh, I could go on. But I won't.