Ouch. Scott Feschuk on Ignatieff the politician.

Scott Feschuk on Ignatieff the Politician. Read it all for yourself at Macleans.

Some of the highlights:

"People of Canada, I ask you: is Michael Ignatieff—typist of books, enthusiast of yoga, trimmer of eyebrows—really a threat to “mess” with anyone? More important: is this what passes for tough-guy talk in academic circles?

“Mess with me and I’ll mess with you.” “I can take a punch.” It’s beginning to seem that Ignatieff considers his position as party leader less a job to do than a role to play. He behaves the way he thinks we expect politicians to behave. He makes the empty promise. He utters the empty threat. He’s so determined not to be defined as Prof. Tweedy McMonocle that he’s inadvertently becoming the next can’t-miss WWE villain: the Hyperbolist.

You half-expect him to turn to the camera and say: “I’m not a two-dimensional caricature of a modern politician, but I play one on TV.”

Ignatieff is widely perceived as a deep and respected thinker. But if you actually listen to him these days, you’re likely to conclude that the problem isn’t that he left Canada for 34 years. The problem is that his intellect failed to clear customs on the journey home."

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I guess there is more to this quote from Ignatieff than I thought: "Nothing is personal in politics, because politics is theater. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel."

and the Oscar goes to......