Quote:
Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler
To sound callous yet again, pretty much sums up my thoughts. He wasn't a "great" man, he didn't make "Canada better". A politician died. Terrible way to go. It's sad in an abstract sense. Canada will not be the worse for it, just the NDP party...
In many ways this reminds of the Lady Di hysteria, on a much smaller, local scale of course...
Yes, I am a bad man.
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In terms of Layton's legacy, his death came at the absolute highest point of popularity he could have hoped to reach. I've seen a lot of comments about how Layton was one of the only honest politicians around. Well, it is easy to be honest when you are the 4th or 5th party on the fringe of the political world. But as the opposition, with a hugely divided caucus between Quebec and the ROC, and trying to fill the Liberal gap and maintain support from his traditional socialist base, Layton was going to have to begin to promise all things to all people, and consequently fall back to the same mode that all other PMs and leaders of the opposition have done.
That, however, is now someone else's problem, and Layton is free for beatification. I won't go as far as Peter12 went in arguing that the emotion is insincere, but it is actually ironic that a lot of people respect him more simply because he died.
Or perhaps "respect" is the wrong word. The death of a man who showed such vitality a few months ago cannot help but to force a person into considering their own mortality. It is in that respect that Layton's death has the greatest impact on the country. I wonder how many people made a donation to a cancer charity yesterday? I hope a lot. Forget all the meaningless platitudes and political doublespeak praising a man for the very same politics they criticized him for mere days ago. The most honest way to remember a politician 99% of us never met is to help the groups that are working to prevent someone else from dying in the same fashion.