Jack Layton is speaking now in front of Parliament. He looks like a national party leader. Stephane Dion, to put it charitably, did not. And that's a significant problem when you're attempting to make the leap to prime minister.
The Liberals will frantically be encouraging media to look at the substance of what Dion said tonight, as opposed to its delivery. And if you put the text of their two speeches next to each other, Dion's was indeed stronger. Unfortunately, most people are not going to meticulously compare their texts. They're going to base their decision on what they saw tonight - or what they didn't see, if they tuned out before the Liberals got their act together and delivered Dion's tape.
For Dion's sake, frankly, not seeing it might have been better. The stumbles over language were perhaps to be expected, although with all afternoon to film it you'd think they could've done enough takes to get it right. But the presentation itself was plainly appalling. At a time when he needed to look reassuring, to look prime ministerial, he looked exactly the way the Conservatives have been trying to portray him - like the leader of some sort of third-rate coup, being filmed in his hideout with one of his accomplices sticking a cheap video camera in his face.
I'm aware this sounds trivial. It's not. And any commentator who overlooks the presentation tonight is being way too kind.
Communication skills and professionalism are key when you're attempting to lead what might be the most unwieldy government in Canadian history. Dion displayed not a smidgeon of either.
From the perspective of parliamentary democracy, I'm of the opinion that the Governor-General should reject Harper's attempt to prorogue. But if I were a Liberal, I'd be hoping she grants it. That would afford time to select a new leader before bringing the Conservatives down. And it's now more obvious than ever that they really, really need one.
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Update: For reasons that are unclear to me, a good number of commenters below seem to think my problem was with Dion's shaky English. It wasn't, which is why I wrote that the stumbles over language were perhaps to be expected.
My problem was this: Stephane Dion's office was given a simple task yesterday - to prepare a video making his case to the country. This task proved so overwhelming that it could not be completed on time, and the final result was so shoddy that Dion's chief of staff felt compelled to apologize for it. None of that augurs well for these people undertaking far more complicated tasks while running the country, which is why the Liberals need to expedite their leadership process post-haste.
