The campaign is over. And whether you’re stocking up on canned food because the barbarians are pounding on the gates, or delighted because you’ve never gone in for the country’s whole “Ooh, we’re so Canadian! We have Medicare and most of us are unarmed!” thing, maybe we can all agree on one thing:
The nation will be diminished with the end of Feschuk’s blog. [Update: And now I find out from bro Mike that the end has indeed come. The index page is tantalizingly alive and well, but the entries have all been deleted; instead, the site offers you Paul Martin’s heartfelt thanks for replacing him with that guy who looks like the young Mordred in John Boorman’s Excalibur. Not in so many words, but you just need to read between the lines…]
The idea of a blog written by the Liberal leader’s speechwriter rubbed some people the wrong way. But the early sniping Scott drew for the offbeat tone of his posts never fazed him, and his more humourless critics quickly withered away. He maintained a strong sense of humour throughout the campaign – gallows humour towards the end, but never bitter – that left you understanding exactly why Martin hired him, and exactly why he probably won’t remain unemployed for long.
What’s more, he has a genuine affection for his boss that comes through very clearly. Having written more than one “Well, crap” speech in my life, I strongly related to this passage from his closing post. He’s relating the scene in Martin’s hotel room after the PM finished reading through the draft concession speech:
He had finished the speech. He put it down. He was silent for a moment. And then… then, he was really, really funny. He made a couple of witty-type remarks, we laughed, we talked about some small changes to the speech, and then we laughed a little more.
I can only judge people based on how I’d react were I in their shoes, facing their reality. Last night, in the PM’s place, I probably would have skewed more to a Johnny Deppesque “rearrangement†of the hotel furniture. But the Prime Minister was gracious and funny. He was cool with it all. He was the way that I would have strived, and probably failed, to be.
Go read the rest of the blog before the powers that be take it down.
I wholeheartedly concur with the assesment of Scott’s blog. I purposefully avoided the blogo-sphere until I had made up my mind who I was voting for. I didn’t want to be swayed too much by a cute turn of phrase rather than the issues. But once I did start looking around at some of the various official and unofficial blogs, I quickly realised that Scott’s take on things was humourous, witty and undeniably honourable. In fact, it may be one of the few things about this campaign, from any side, that had the integrity to make a point without being mean.
Kudos to Scott. His perspective will be missed, but I’m sure I will be reading his work again in the near future