What Have the Grits Been Puffin'?

John Tory called on Blackberry #3 and he's urging me not to prorogue. Apparently he wants the Liberal Brain Trust (Kinsella?? - Ed.) tied up in Ottawa, obsessing about Afghanistan, during the provincial election. I'll think about it.

Meanwhile the Grits are on the Rock (rocks?) trying to suck up to Danny Williams. Apparently while chumming around with journalists late at night in downtown St. John's, Iggy the House Elf showed himself capable of much wit (who would have known?) with his comment that the official bird of the Liberal Party should be a puffin - because it lays an egg a year, flaps its wings a lot and tries to hide its own excrement (that's Harvard-speak for "shit").

That's what I've been telling people for years. A fake Conservative Party membership is going out to you today, Michael. Have another tot of screech.

Prorogue, Darnit!

Jeez, you wouldn't believe the pressure I've been under to prorogue, or is that perogie? Anyway Ralph the Last Grit in Saskatchewan called and said the Ontario Liberals are threatening not to attend Parliament because they have to spend the month of September in their ridings. Something to do with a provincial referendum on MFF.

Even this dog's master is tired out. You're right, it's Kyoto the Malamutt! What an alert little fellow, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his owner, except for the glasses. Too bad he can't fly!

OK, I'm a reasonable guy, so in the interests of parliamentary unity - plus I don't want to face a bunch of riled up Grits just yet - I've booked the Chateau Laurier at 9 am tomorrow for the big announcement. Speech from the Throne, tax cuts, the whole ball of wax. I'm going to roll out the outline of a whole new Promise to Canadians™.

Memo to the Press: I won't be taking questions. You can listen and take pictures, period. In the immortal words of P.E.T., "Just Watch Me!"

Tory! Tory! Tory!

Ah those were the days.

Backpack Boy's Hands Are Clean

Quick, how many provinces does Canada have?

Me on LaFlaque

Tabar- nouche I'm trying to work on my French by watching Radio - Canada and look what I found. It's the work of Serge Chapleau, the creative La Presse cartoonist, on his muppet news show, Et Dieu Créa LaFlaque. Your tax dollars at work...

Maybe this cruel satire is one of the reasons I'm stuck at 33.33% in Quebec. Must get Brian to have a word with the producers. Or maybe we can wait till Tom Long finds a new CBC president and Chapleau can be induced to work on my smile and move my eyes wider apart et faire la tête moins carrée.

At least my French is better than Backpack Boy's English. Dieu bénisse le Canada!

This Government is Dog Tired

Jeez I'm tired too.  Every free minute this summer we've been working on forging a new Promise to Canadians™ and getting the ducks in a row.  I think I'll get the lovely Michaëlle Jean to read it from the Throne. Stay tuned.

Sarko's Love Handles

Sarkozy's got the French press so well trained they even photoshop his love handles.  Left is the Reuters photo, right the one in Paris Match. They even gave him a sunburn so he didn't look so, ahem, Algerian.

I've asked Sandra to have a word with our Canadian media owners, about maybe Photoshopping any images that show me more, ahem, portly than I am. Except of course the Star, who would ADD love handles to any picture they took of me.

Why Peter Gets Defence

Look at the pecs and abs and gluts and whatever on this guy Poutine. His recent naked aggression at the North Pole got me thinking - the only man in Canada's New Government™ who can stand up to the Chief Russki and defend our northern frontiers is Peter MacKay, the early morning iron pumper of the parliamentary precinct. Plus the Shrill Times keeps voting him the Sexiest Guy on the Hill. So that's why I dumped Gordon O'Connor for the former Mr. Belinda Stronach.

And also you should know that Bernier's going to Kandahar to hang around with the Vandoozers and get his picture taken riding a tank. This should nudge the polls upward in Quebec.

I had to shuffle Prentice because he was getting too friendly with the First Nations, and giving them all sorts of concessions without getting them to promise to vote Conservative. Chuck will lean on them a little harder, do the Wheat Board thing. These autochotones have been voting Liberal for too long. I mean Dief the Chief gave them the vote in the first place, and since then all they have done is abuse his trust.

Stop the World

Jeez, one day Nahanni, the next day Markham, yesterday Carquet. Hey guys we've got almost $7 million in the bank. Can't we slow down a bit? George W. and Jose Canseco are coming for a security pow-wow this week, and I'm all whacked out. Plus I've got to get chapter 6 of the hockey history to the publishers.

Sarko's in Town

Brian and I may visit the new guy Sarko this week. For some reason he is vacationing in the Hotel New Hampshire. Paul Desmarais says he wants to patch up Franko-Yankee relations. Something about oil concessions in Iraq. George will be all ears.

I like Sarko already - the other day he tried to punch out some papparazzi on a boat. Sandra Buckler was ecstatic, but I told her we don't do that sort of thing up here in the Great White North.

Here he is at the G-8 after meeting Poutine and toasting Franko-Russki Relations. Vive La France. Hic!

Lay Off the Lit Bits, Martel

Laureen tells me some metrosexual from Montreal name of Yawn Martel is trying to get publicity by sending me the Great Works of World Literature to read, then bragging about it in the Toronto papers. Dante Gabriel Chavez, people like that.

The idea is, rednecks like me would be more loving and caring if we got a dose of Deep Thought. Now I like fiction as much as the next guy - nothing I like better than curling up with the latest Tom Clancy - but jeez I'm up to my yinyang in briefing books. I haven't got time to read some warmed over tale of a guy in a boat with some animals. It reminds me of Cabinet.  Besides, Ben and Rachel are getting me into Harry Potter plus I'm writing my own book about our national sport.

Memo to Oda: Can you do anything to get this guy off my back? How about a Canada Council travel grant to Kazakhstan?

Iggy the House Elf

The thinking woman's Harvard intellectual has done it again, with a four-page glossy in the New Yak Times. He was wrong about Iraq. It's just that he found those Kurds so courageous, and his heart went out to them. Plus they let him fire off a Kalashnikov.

So now he is back in the Grit sheep fold, with a major mea culpa.

I don't buy it. Politics is a tough business for a thinking man. It's those pesky polls, right? So many compromises you have to make, right?

Look, the reason Dithers didn't take us into Iraq was because he was too busy sucking up to Chirac. Now we have word the Francos wanted to build old Uncle Saddam a state of the art reactor, which George tells me was a no-no.

So stop beating your brain on the bedpost, Iggy. This is a tough business, and Lester Pearson is not around to help.

Plus it's too little and too late. Sarkozy's already patching things up with Bush, and the Americans are letting the French back into Iraq if they promise to be good.

Jeez What a Summer

Trust me, troops, I'm doing all I can on the rubber chicken curcuit. Now it's rubber moose. I'm up north of 60, trying to get somebody with an ice auger to fly to the Pole and drill a hole so I can drop a lead-weighted Maple Leaf on top of Poutine's pathetic tricolour.

Whew! Here's Poutine at the North Pole just before he got into his mini-sub. Jeez, he looks like the bad guy in Red October. Maybe Ben's right and I should take up karate.

Out on the Barbecue Circuit

Back real soon. Had to drum up some policy in Charlottetown. My Ottawa operatives tell me Backpack Boy and his weenies have been busy and he plans to take this Leader of the Opposition job seriously.