Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff, having led this party to the mid-20s in the polls, has fired his Chief of Staff, Ian Davey.

This leads to uncomfortable question of just how is it that Ian Davey can be blamed for Liberal misfortune.

Update: An apology appears at the end of this post.

Michael Ignatieff's plummet in the polls has been happening for some time, arguably as far back as June, but it was his performance on September 1 that really kicked the chair out from under the Liberal Party:

The country could be plunged into yet another election campaign in as little as two weeks after Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff warned Prime Minister Stephen Harper: "Your time is up."

Ignatieff delivered a fiery, campaign-style speech to his caucus, announcing that the Liberal party will no longer support the Tories in crucial confidence votes in the House of Commons.

"After four years of drift, four years of denial, four years of division and four years of discord, Mr. Harper, your time is up," Ignatieff told cheering MPs and senators in Sudbury.

It was all downhill from there.

So now we have the inevitable slaughter:

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has a new chief of staff - Peter Donolo, esteemed as the communications expert behind former prime minister Jean Chretien's ascent and long reign in power.

The announcement was made late Tuesday night amid a flurry of leaks that caught even the departing chief of staff, Ian Davey, by surprise.

I'm going to put aside the laughable way by which everyone knew of what was happening except Ian Davey.  By now, Michael Ignatieff's incompetence is no longer newsworthy.  It's news when he doesn't mess something up.

Instead, I am going to go back to September 1.  Michael Ignatieff declared that he would lead the Liberals in defeating the minority Conservative government.  In the weeks that follow, the Liberals crater in the polls.  As a consequence, Michael Ignatieff fires his Chief of Staff.

So...his Chief of Staff is responsible for what has happened, right?

Well, this could be true, in one of two ways:

1. Michael Ignatieff came up with the "your time is up" idea, and Ian Davey failed to dissuade Ignatieff from taking this course and suffering the consequences.  For not succeeding at protecting Michael Ignatieff from himself, and for not protecting the Liberal Party from Michael Ignatieff, Ian Davey must go.
2. Ian Davey came up with the "your time is up" idea, and sold it to Michael Ignatieff, who bought it hook, line, and sinker, being the political neophyte that he is.  For having so easily manipulated Ignatieff, Ian Davey must go.

Neither version makes Michael Ignatieff look good.  Really, though, I think the first version is closest to the truth.  Ian Davey might be ill-suited to the job, but he is essentially blameless.  On the other hand, Michael Ignatieff can hardly be seen to take responsibility and fire himself.  Michael Ignatieff comes up with a terrible idea, ignoring the advice of people around him.  That idea costs the Liberals dearly in he polls.  Facing pressure from within, Michael Ignatieff blames his staff for his own incompetence, and placates his critics by replacing that staff and putting an old Liberal stalwart in charge.  These critics see that Jean Chretien is back, at least by proxy, and so breath a sigh of relief, hoping against hope that Michael Ignatieff will be rendered a harmless figurehead by Peter Donolo and the Chretien power-brokers behind him.

Ian Davey (and whoever follows him out the door) will carry the blame that ought to be assigned to Michael Ignatieff. 

It's Michael Ignatieff's incompetence, but it's Ian Davey who loses his job.

You know what they say: It's a poor carpenter who blames his tools.

I apologize for giving Michael Ignatieff too much credit: Call me an optimist, but I really hoped Michael Ignatieff's mistakes were his own.  Apparently I was wrong:

Critics said Mr. Ignatieff's staff pushed him to declare that he would attempt to defeat the government as soon as possible, a move that backfired with an election-weary public.

So Ian Davey might be carrying more of the blame than I had expected.  As a puppet, then, it is unfair to allocate more than a small amount of the blame to the Liberal leader.

For that, I apologize.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 11:33 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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