Michael Ignatieff: The Sean Avery of Canadian Politics

So.

I'm eating my mini-wheats this morning, and have the displeasure of turning the channel to CTV News and get to watch a 3 minute  Liberal "commercial" disguised as a "news item" - provided free of charge by our fawning mainstream media.

(Oh.  By the way.. loved watching Ezra last night on the maiden voyage of Sun TV - Channell 177 on Shaw Digital Cable.  The production values are a little rough, but it was interesting and new and far from the "Tea Party/Glen Beck" extremes that liberal hysterics were suggesting)

And as I was watching him complain about Stephen Harper - and say nothing about who HE is and what HE can promise Canada, it struck me.

Michael Ignatieff is politics' answer to Sean Avery.

Watching Sean Avery stand in front of Martin Brodeaur, making not even a semblance of effort to actually contribute to the play, is essentially what we see from Michael Ignatieff.

There he is, standing in front of Stephen Harper, waiving his arms around, trying to distract the voters, but really, taking no part in the game at all himself.

Literally.

Missing 70% of the votes in Parliament.

And when he is "in the game", he basically stands there and waives his arms around.  He's a side-show joke.

Look.

I'm not going to kid myself.

Stephen Harper's on-ice alter ego?  I would liken Harper, I suppose, to a Brendan Shannahan.

A plus-minus winner.  A guy who does nothing spectacular, but is an ironman who goes into the corners and just helps his team win. Over and over again.

Certainly, he is no Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.  Let's not kid ourselves.  If he was - he would be cruising into a majority vote.  But he's a journeyman leader.  He puts in his time, he takes the hits, and he keeps coming back.

Who would you draft for your team leader?