Michael Ignatieff - Pudding Time!

See that picture? Little weird isn't it? Kinda looks like
one of the "special people" from the care home down the street
who just found out that they were going to be serving
chocolate pudding for desert. If you listen closely, you can
almost here him screaming; "YAY POOODING! YAY POOODING".

The man in that picture is Michael Ignatieff, who recently
lost his bid to become the next leader of Canada's liberal party.
Now, Mr. Ignatieff is a talented writer, and a pretty smart guy, as
far as left-wing pseudo intellectuals go. The point of the stock
photo I pulled off of google images, is to illustrate just how
ill at ease Mr. Ignatieff seems to be in public.

Throughout the day on Saturday, the cameras would pan in on him,
and would always capture, without exception, a range of bizarre
expressions. Phony smiles, shoulder nudges followed by wide-eyed,
feigned surprise, and this weird thing he continued to do with his
eyebrows, cocking them upwards to the point that they appeared to
touch his hairline.

He seems to constantly have the look of man who walked in on
his elderly parents making love at a young age, and has been
trying in vein to erase the mental image from his head for decades.

Michael Ignatieff is indeed an Enigma. A person, who David Frum once
described as ..."a man without empathy trying to understand those who
possess it...a man who has arrogantly separated himself from the suffering
human race grappling with the realization that he belongs to it"

Ignatieff admitted as much in his novel "Scar Tissue", a memorable
piece of Canadian literature, perhaps even reaching brilliance.

I guess I'll avoid tripping into psycho babble trying to explain the
possible emotional motivations of a man who inexplicably thrusts himself
into the political spotlight to try and better a nation filled with
people that, who by his admission, he doesn't understand, and feels
alienated from.

There's an old quote about Neville Chamberlain, I forget who said it,
it went something along the lines of; "When Neville Chamberlain was alone
in a room, no one was there, not even Chamberlain". It spoke to Chamberlain's
utter lack of a sense of self, a sad comment on a man who mimicked emotions,
because he had no clear understanding of what they where. Ignatieff seems to
suffer from the same form of social retardation, only he lacks the skills
to fake it.

Anyway, looks like Michael Ignatieff won't be getting his pudding - Political,
or otherwise. YAY POOODING!

Cordially

Joe