Heard that all Canadian pols have to avow hatred for * to win.

Would Stephen Harper turn Canada into smaller version of the United States? The Bush administration certainly hopes so. An oft-quoted article by Partrick Basham in the Washington Times praised Harper as, "Mr. Bush's new best friend internationally and the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader."

That appraisal was based on Stephen Harper’s record on the illegal invasion of Iraq, his anti-environmental stance, and his social conservatism. It was not meant to be hatchet job on Harper. In fact the article was written in praise of Harper by a conservative columnist who works for a conservative think tank and printed in a publication known to be right leaning. Basham is Harper’s political ally, a friend in the neo-conservative sense of the word. Harper, desperately trying to separate himself from his record, immediately fired off a rebuttal pointing out that he had softened his view considerably on those issues.

In an article for The Globe and Mail Basham responded to Harper’s rebuttal saying "I had said that Mr. Harper was pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto, and socially conservative. His response was disheartening: He used evasions and weasel words to both affirm and deny every item on the list."

When your friends are accusing you of using evasions and weasel words, what does that leave your foes with? Well, many of Harper’s foes just quote what he and others in the Conservative Party have said. There are a few web sites dedicated to this. The Liberal Party runs StephenHarperSaid.ca, The Canadian Democratic Movement has a page of Harper quotes, and Brainy Quote also has many of Harper’s more memorable attacks on Canada on their site. The latest Liberal attack ads also depend heavily on things that have sprung directly from Mr. Harper’s mouth.

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20060112213014325