Iggy Under Attack

In less than a year as Liberal chief, Michael Ignatieff has already earned the ire of Canada's punditocracy.

Last week, Denis Coderre announced he's calling it quits as Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant. But he might be the least of Iggy's problems. The next election may be months – even years – away, but Canada's punditocracy has already delivered its verdict on the Liberal chief, and it's a near-unanimous thumbs down.

Too Toronto

Jane Taber of The Globe and Mail is worried Iggy is “just too Toronto” surrounded by his “Bay St. Brain trust” of pointy-shoed aides wearing “tight button up shirts,” who, she added, are woefully light on political experience. Liberal pundit Robert Silver issued a stinging rebuttal, noting that less than a fifth of Iggy's staff are actually from Toronto, and that, far from being inexperienced, Iggy's inner circle is loaded with veterans from the McGuinty and Chrétien governments.

Too Invisible

Iggy wasted his summer and let Stephen Harper run away in the polls. So say Chantal Hébert in The Hill Times, Jeffrey Simpson in The Globe and Mail, L. Ian Macdonald in the Montreal Gazette, Nicholas Hirst of the Winnipeg Free Press, and The Toronto Star's editorial board. Instead of setting off on the barbeque junket and playing to the regional media, Iggy should have defined himself to Canadians and set out a clear policy agenda, they believe. The lone dissenter is Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella, who notes that Iggy's summer strategy was nearly identical to those Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, and Stephen Harper followed in the summers immediately before they took 24 Sussex Drive.

Too Snobby

Iggy's new English ads, which call for a government that "thinks big" and a Canada that isn't afraid to take on the world, were quickly eviscerated by ex-Harper staffer Patrick Muttart as a sop to “snobs.” Also anti-ad: Andrew Coyne, National Editor of Maclean’s, took aim at Iggy's choice of scenery; The Toronto Star's David Crane rapped Iggy for lifting one of 1970s Tory leader Bob Stanfield's old slogans (“We can do better”); and The Globe and Mail's editorial board thinks the ads belie “an off-putting air of entitlement.”

Too Truthy

From Iggy's false claim that the Chrétien government killed the deficit without raising taxes to his communications staff's selective reading of OECD reports on the Canadian economy, the Liberal leader, say some pundits, has developed a tendency to play fast and loose with the facts. Only Simpson offers a compliment, albeit a back-handed one. He ruminates that Iggy is only the latest in a long line of politicians, many of them successful, who saw the truth as an inconvenience to be avoided.

Less than a year after being selected as the Grits' new leader, has Iggy already blown his chances at an election victory? The pundits seem to think so. But they've been wrong before.

On the beat: @kinsellawarren, Aaron Wherry, @kady, Silver-Powers, Andrew Steele, @davidakin, @chan_bert, Andrew Coyne