Harper caught plagarizing

Plagarism is a pretty serious offense in academics. And we'll soon find out how serious an offense it is in politics:



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Harper's position on Iraq circa 2003 (supporting Bush) has clearly been something of an embarrassment for the Conservatives, and it's been quietly swept under the rug in the years since. One wonders how long the Liberals have been sitting on this, because you'd figure it could have helped them in 2006.

Of course, the question we should be asking is whether Harper has actually charted an irresponsible foreign policy course for Canada. Reading the posts headlining Progressive Bloggers, it sure seems to be the popular opinion, but I don't agree.

Sure, we're in Afghanistan, but we have the Liberals to thank for that. All our NATO allies are similarly engaged in that country. And the Harper government has pledged to withdraw within a few years.

Really, other than attempting to assert sovereignty over the Arctic (which, admittedly, will take a lot more than a few icebreakers), I'm not really sure what else the Harper government has done in terms of foreign relations. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Canada is no longer punching above its weight, as Danielle Takacs argues here.

I'm not sure that this plagarized speech is evidence of that, only a reminder that Harper was wrong about the most bone-headed and destructive war of our generation and, for some reason, felt he needed to borrow rhetoric from other world leaders to defend it.