Let’s play “What If” for a bit.

Now, during the campaign, the supporters of Beloved Leader dismissed any suggestion that his Portliness would lead Canada into a war in Iraq. Nonsense. There they go, playing that Conservatives - SCARY card again!

Of course, he did vote in the House against a motion urging the Canadian government not to participate in the US nightmare in Iraq. And he did call the US Canada’s best fwiend “in the whole wide world”. And he did mock the Liberals for their refusal to get involved, noting that “…indulging a juvenile and insecure anti-Americanism, this government has for the first time in our history left us outside our British and American allies in their time of need.”

But no, he had no intention of leading us into the American disaster. AFter all, didn’t he say, specifically, that :

“”If I were prime minister, we would not be involved in Iraq. I would encourage the Americans and hope they’re successful, but our government would not be there.”

Seems pretty clear. But we’ve leaned that Beloved Leader does, in fact, have some hidden depth to him.

We’ve seen that by “elected Senate”, he means “my hand picked buddy”.

We’ve seen that by “greater openness and transparency”, he means reduced media access and muzzles on his caucus.

So what if by “We Would Not Be Involved In Iraq”, he meant to add…”unless things change”? Or…”unless I change my mind”? Or…”unless George asks me to?”

I mean, our Conservative friends have generously explained to us that things said in the heat of a campaign aren’t meant to be taken seriously.

So just for fun - if you were trying to prepare the good people of Canada for a…NEW interpretation of your campaign position, how would you do it? What are some of the messages that you would start feeding through media and through your supporters?

I guess in general terms you’d want to lower Canadian perception of the “cost” side of the equation, right? Discourage media coverage of casualties and deaths, and all that. Reduce the number of visible public reminders of those deaths, that sort of thing.

And we’d hear a lot of bullshit about the need to support “the mission” without question or debate, as though we…the electorate…weren’t the people to whom government were ultimately accountable to.

And we’d see some spending in the budget next week profiled to support an Iraq mission, but described in broad, general terms.

And we’d hear a lot about how much our relationship with the Americans had improved, and how important that relationship was, and this importance of some reciprocal gestures of friendship to our new best pals.

Oh, and a lot of stuff about the need for Canada to regain its “leadership” role in international affairs.

Those are some of the games I would play if I were in charge. What are some of the other things you’d do? That’s a serious question: it would be interest to establish a little checklist, then see how close we came to getting it right as Beloved Leader conducts us, dancing, toward the crater.

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