Jack's world

I'm not generally one to go all hyper-partisan on you folks and shout it from the rooftops every time Jack Layton ends up in the media. I mean, even if I felt inclined to do that, which I don't, there are party mailing lists for that sort of thing, right? But today I'm impressed enough that I'm going to embarrass myself by doing just that.

First, there was Layton's appearance on CPAC's Prime Time Politics on October 26th, where he came across as pragmatic and smart. The interview lasted twelve minutes and covered everything from the possibility of a spring election to Afghanistan to specific pieces of legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Accountability Act, and the crime bills. It even contained a believable response to the question: "Realistically, where does the Conservative ideology train and the NDP ideology train--where on those tracks do those trains ever meet?" But most importantly, it felt natural. That's right, an entire twelve minutes without even a touch of that artificial air that he often gets when the camera is trained on him. I almost cheered.

Then came today, and this news story about Layton being willing to a) talk to Harper about possible improvements to the Clean Air Act that might bring the NDP closer to supporting it, and b) face a spring or even a fall election if the Conservatives don't start being willing to remember that they're in a minority parliament. This is the way the game is played, folks. Even Conservative blogger Greg Staples and Liberal blogger Far and Wide have a grudging respect for the guy this week, while über-Liberal Jason Cherniak is spinning, spinning, spinning.

[By the way, I listen to the CPAC shows on podcast, and it was already in MP3 form on my computer, so it was easy enough to save the Layton interview excerpt for anybody else who wanted to hear it. Feel free to nab it from here.]