David Emerson is EXACTLY what is wrong with Canadian politics

Since I was a kid first learning how the Canadian system of government and politics worked, I've been amazed and disheartened by the way in which the system binds the hands of voters. Specifically: what if I like a candidate who is running for PM, but despise that party's candidate in my local riding? Or what if I really like the work of a local candidate, but find his party's leader to be completely unendurable? In either instance the Canadian system has me voting against my conscience.

Canadian elections are absolutely not about personalities of individuals. They are driven by anger against one party, hope for another, disenchantment with them all. But they are not about individual candidates. Elections are about party platforms, promises, and perception.

And so David Emerson demonstrates his Hindenberg ego stating time and again -- since his unconscionable defection to the Conservative party -- that voters voted specifically for him, and that he could join any party and still have won his election. The arrogance of the man is enough to make any voter gnash his teeth.

Emerson compounds his egomania by not only sweeping aside calls that he return campaign funds that helped see him elected as Liberal candidate, but actually states a belief that his name-recognition was responsible for the Liberal party receiving so many donations in the first place.

David Emerson believes himself to be the Justin Timberlake of western politics.

Worse yet is Emerson's stubbornness and unwillingness to acknowledge his voters' outrage or their wishes that he run in a by-election.

David Emerson embodies all of the odious arrogant, unresponsive, ego-maniacal, entitlement-driven, leprous traits of Canadian politics. He claims his move to the Conservative party was an effort to better serve his constituents. Well, the constituents he professes to love so much are calling for him to quit, to return money, to run in a by-election. He will have none of that. So, clearly, David Emerson's move was a completely self-serving power-grab; ointment for the ego after suffering with the three-wheeled bus that was the Paul Martin Liberals.

Emerson says that he's often thought of leaving politics entirely, as though that's a threat that should give voters pause. It doesn't. It's more hollow bloviating from a man with no ethics, no conscience, and not even the PR savvy to recognize the outrage his defection has caused among the very people who voted him into office.

The only consolation to be found in a person so deluded and self-absorbed is the fall they inveitably take when reality collides with their increasingly bilious fantasy world.

May Emerson take a long, Mulroney-esque fall from the top of his Tower of Babel. He'll be grabbing for dollars all the way down, but his reputation (already) will possess all of the phyiscal qualities of a used bedpan.