Can you lose the high ground on a molehill? Well, if you’re Jack Layton, apparently you can:

NDP Leader Jack Layton stepped into the fray Saturday over alleged sexist slurs made toward female MPs by demanding Peter MacKay apologize or resign as Canada’s foreign minister.

Layton said MacKay should apologize for a remark Liberals said they heard during question period in the House of Commons Thursday, essentially calling Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, his former girlfriend, a dog.

Layton also dragged in a comment MacKay made during the federal election.

“And while he’s at it should apologize to (NDP MP) Alexa McDonough for telling her to get back to her knitting when she was criticizing Afghanistan mission and raising questions about it,” said Layton. “And if he’s not willing to apologize, he should resign.”

At the time, MacKay said it was an “old expression” and he didn’t mean to offend anyone.

“His apology should go to all women members of parliament and members of the country because … it’s certainly going to discourage women from seeking public office,” Layton said. “And in that, he’s done a great disservice.”

You know, when you spend several dozen words espousing on what essential boils down to “Tories hate women,” over an incident that is actually trivial whether or not it happened, that’s a pretty good sign that you’ve turned into a windbag.

Look. By the Liberals’ own admission, MacKay never used the word “dog” or worse in his comment. He only implied that the word would fit Belinda Stronach. That is an implication; it is not an insult.

If you try to prosecute someone for merely making an implication instead of an overt statement, you are crossing into Orwellian territory, because you are trying to prosecute a thoughtcrime. And the result makes you look far worse than the actual offender.

But let’s pretend, for a moment, that Peter MacKay actually said, out loud, in public, on tape: “Belinda Stronach is a dog.” Oh hell, let’s make it even more explicit: suppose he does say the B-word.

All that does is make him a jerk.

A basic rule of life: Unless you’re a frontline service clerk, you can’t be fired for being a jerk.

If the Liberals (and the NDP) held their own members to the same standard they’re holding MacKay, they’d lose all of their front bench and half of their backbenchers, including a third of their female membership. (You think women can’t be jerks? Think Carolyn Parrish.) Because MPs and Ministers are human beings, which means that from time to time, they behave badly.

Does MacKay’s opinion of Belinda affect his opinion on foreign relations? No, because Belinda is not a foreign leader. Has he screwed up any part of his job as foreign minister? If he has, it hasn’t come to public attention.

So is implying an insult a terminal offense? No, because it’s the normal give-and-take of politics.

The Opposition should do themselves a favor and let this matter drop. Right now they’re looking like bigger jerks than Peter MacKay could ever hope to be.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 10:14 and is filed under No DiPsticks, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.