I have said that the entire Senate mess – speaking purely politically – is to be laid at the feet of the Prime Minister, not for his sloth, or any lack of integrity, but because of an excessive zeal to wipe out corruption. As Talleyerand is said to have remarked: “Surtout, pas trop de zèle”.
My wife was going on this morning at breakfast about why she suspected Harper: “He belongs to some church that believes in a wrathful God” she said. “A punishing God, not a God of joy”.
From the book of Revelation chapter 19:
15 And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KINGS OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
It was as good an explanation of any I have heard for the Prime Minister to lose sight of all the usual expedient political calculus of fixing corruption going forward, rather than by retroactive extirpation of the unrighteous. Instead of effacing all personal characteristics, as is his usual method, Mr. Harper seems bent on revealing his true nature.
A rod of iron indeed. Pardon me, Sir, but your inner Cromwell is showing. Much as I admire Cromwell, for saving us from Stuart absolutism, his reputation was besmirched for massacring Royalists at Drogheda. Surtout pas trop de zèle.