With a Whimper

So, the latest round of political nonsense, well summarized here by The Economist, ends with the proroguing of Canadian parliament.

The thing that surprised me was to hear that the request Harper made of the Governor General - to shut down parliament rather than lose a confidence vote - was literally unprecedented in the history of parliamentary democracies. All those different parliamentary democracies out there, and all the hundreds of years they've been around and Stephen Harper is the first leader to cling to power so tightly, and respect tradition so little, that he would hide behind the Governor General instead of standing like a man to face a vote in the house.

I don't know whether to be impressed by such a long run of honourable behaviour by politicians, or to be saddened that it came to an end in this manner, at this time, in this place.