Stephen Harper, nice guy

The publication of a new biography has the prime minister's back up, and today the pundits give him some makeover advice.

Our prime minister is generally characterized as a control-freak. And that’s not necessarily bad. After all his hands-on managerial style is why we keep voting for him. But you can only imagine the expletives Stephen Harper has been uttering behind closed doors this week with the release of Harperland, a biography by Lawrence Martin that presents a very different depiction of the PM than the one favoured by his image consultants and campaign advisers.

The Prime Minister’s Office has dismissed the book as a piece of partisan hackery by a Liberal sympathizer, but this “ignores Martin's crusading pursuit of past Liberal misdeeds, from Shawinigate to the sponsorship scandal,” writes Susan Riley in the Ottawa Citizen, “but, also, the intriguing fact that most of the author's sources are former intimates of Stephen Harper's.” Control-freakery and partisanship aren’t rare in politics, but Riley says Martin presents some pretty firm evidence that what “distinguishes Harper is the intensity of his partisanship and the extent of his control.”

If Harper’s looking to clean up his image, Sun Media’s Michael Den Tandt suggests “He needs to be nicer … Niceness is an unsung but critical quality in politics” Many Canadians like Harper’s policies, they just don’t like him. Putting on a happy face could clinch those last few votes Harper needs for a majority, and represents no less than “clear road to enduring power that, if he took it, could cement him as one of the most important modern prime ministers, alongside Trudeau and Mulroney,” according to Den Tandt.

Don Martin at the National Post says that the furor over Harperland has been “mostly low-calibre blasts between uninformed sides … What’s been missing in most of the commentary so far is anybody who’s actually READ the book.” Martin plans to rectify that soon, should conditions be conducive. “I’ll let you know after this weekend by reading it myself, provided the Ryder Cup is boring and the weather stays wet.” Good to see a man who has his priorities straight.