The L.Z. part refers to CBC’s resident pundit emeritus, Larry Zolf. The “D” part, naturally, stands for “deluded.”

You’re probably already familiary with his past column on Stephen Harper, but if you want further proof of his delusion, check out his latest column, in which he attempts to rip on Jack Layton and the NDP.

I’m perfectly willing to concede that there are some on the Blogging Tories blogroll who might welcome such a riff. I, however, am not one of them. When an Establishment pundit spouts out nonsense with no justification and with no resemblance to reality, it does tend to color anything else he writes, and such coloration is plainly evident here:

The NDP caucus apart from Patrick Martin, Charlie Angus and Alexa McDonough is ho-hum. Even the ferocious NDP MP from Winnipeg North, Judy Wasylycia-Leis is silent.

Silent, hm? I invite everyone to have a look at this page — it’s the indexing of the last Parliamentary session, showing statements by Ms. Wasylycia-Leis during same. She is listed on 47 different topics, some more than once; that’s hardly “silent.”

The next two paragraphs show the root of Zolf’s anger:

Then in the last campaign the NDP decided to focus its real guns on the Liberals. It was the NDP that went to the Mounties and charged that the Liberals were a party to the leaks of a legislative decision governing income trusts.

It was also the NDP that joined Harper in his crusade against Liberal corruption and helped bring the governing party down.

And here we see, through a dark mirror, the Liberal Party of Canada line when it comes to the NDP: a sense of resentment that it would refuse to overlook Liberal corruption and create a situation that could (and did) result in them being out of power. I strongly suspect that Zolf would not accept that, apart from a change of leader, the Liberal Party wouldn’t really need renewal.

But right now, the NDP is a third party having no balance of power at all. Unlike past incarnations of the party, it is unable to exercise an influence on government policy in return for its support.

I suppose stronger amendments to the Accountability Act don’t count, in Zolf’s view. But this statement also ignores the fact that the Tories are pretty much in the driver’s seat when it comes to gaining support for its legislation; they’re not dependent on any one party to drive their agenda. The numbers (in terms of seat representation) simply don’t allow for it.

Now it is facing a Liberal leadership contest in which the Liberal have four strong contenders in Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, Stephane Dion and Gerard Kennedy. All four of these top contenders are more progressive than the NDP and all of them outshine the NDP in left-of-centre policy thinking.

Any one of these four top Liberal contenders could take a great deal of NDP votes in the next election.

You have noted by now, of course, that Zolf offers nothing to back up this claim. No statements by the candidates, no position papers, nothing. No proof equals no credibility. In the Age of the Blog, you’d think Zolf would know this by now.

Labour has watched the NDP’s caution and lack of daring in handling Harper and they don’t like it. Layton has still not patched up his differences with Buzz Hargrove.

Hargrove doesn’t like Layton’s timid approach to the Tories. Layton cannot call on the Canadian Auto Workers in the next election. One of Canada’s most powerful and influential unions may just work for the Liberals, which could deliver more Liberal seats.

Zolf’s assertion ignores one fact: Hargrove was dismissed from the NDP membership because he was advocating “strategic voting” — encouraging his members to vote for candidates other than NDP runners who had a chance of defeating local Tories. This lack of partisan loyalty may seem like realpolitik acceptable to the Liberals, but to the NDP it made a nonsense out of membership.

There is, however, a passage in which Zolf might have a point:

Layton and the NDP’s general lack of purpose is also shown by Layton doing nothing to distance the NDP from Sid Ryan and his Canadian Union of Public Employees’ dramatic shunning and boycott of Israel on the Palestine issue. The least Layton could have done is suggest Ryan follow the NDP policy of a two-state Palestine.

This of course, has only helped Harper, who has stepped into the void in his quest for Jewish seats. He has condemned both Hamas and the government of Iran for their anti-Israel stances.

Layton’s handling of Buzz, Harper and Sid Ryan and CUPE and the whole issue of Israel has been a real dereliction of duty on Layton’s part.

Layton has let Sid Ryan and CUPE off the hook. Layton’s silence on the Ryan matter is devastating. Layton’s silence makes Layton look like he agrees with Ryan’s one-sided condemnation of Israel.

Now I’ve checked the NDP’s website, and there don’t seem to be any press releases on the issue. However, I’m not entirely certain that Israel and Middle-East relations (apart from the Great War on Terror) play such a big role in the Canadian public agenda. Layton’s silence on the CUPE issue could be more properly seen as ignorance rather than condoning, since CUPE hasn’t really dominated the headlines all that much.

Now I could go on, but I think it’d be better if I let you read the thing. I seriously doubt that the CBC would drop him, but you should be aware at least that when it comes to punditry, Zolf should not be considered a heavyweight.l

This entry was posted on Monday, July 3rd, 2006 at 17:05 and is filed under Fisking Exercises, Libranos, Media Watch, No DiPsticks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.