{"id":2491,"date":"2009-11-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2491"},"modified":"2012-05-29T14:21:19","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T18:21:19","slug":"christmas-letters-michael-ignatief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2491","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Letters: Michael Ignatief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted an exclusive copy of Stephen Harper’s Christmas letter<\/a>. Today, a draft of Michael Ignatieff’s, obtained from my OLO contacts. I publish it here so that those of you<\/a> not on Michael’s Christmas card list can get a look.<\/p>\n

\n

Salutations my Canadian friends,<\/p>\n

Isaiah Berlin once proclaimed \u201cphilosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions<\/em>\u201d \u2013 over the past year, I have found that the same could be said about politicians in question period. There, now that I have successfully lightened the mood with a joke, allow me to recap 2009 as is custom to do in these letters.<\/p>\n

In May I was named Liberal Party leader, following in the footsteps of many great men, and my predecessor Stephane Dion. I owe a special thanks to my good friend Bob and (NOTE: Can someone in the Liberal research bureau please find the name of the other chap in that race and insert here<\/em>) for stepping aside.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\"\"<\/span><\/a>I immediately placed the Prime Minister on probation, then on double probation. I flirted briefly with the idea of upping this to triple probation, but after wafer-gate and the Iqauluit typo, I felt the time was right to strike. As Machiavelli said \u201cIt is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver<\/em>\u201d, so I concocted a clever plan, whereby I would reveal a bold policy vision to Canadians, letting voters know where I stand<\/strike> involving special committees, EI reports, and opposition days. Alas, I was foiled by Jack Layton! Foiled by Jack Layton <\/em>\u2013 what an ignominious fate, would you not agree?<\/p>\n

On a personal note, I\u2019ve enjoyed spending time eating my double-double at Tim Hortons, as I watch the Canadians and Maple Leaves duel it out for hockey supremacy, eh?<\/p>\n

In conclusion, let me leave you and your family with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Michael Ignatieff \u2013 \u201cPatriotism is a strong nationalistic feeling for a country whose borders and whose legitimacy and whose ethnic composition is taken for granted<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas,<\/strike> Happy Holidays,<\/strike> Seasons Greetings,<\/strike> Joyeux Noel,<\/strike> Sincerely yours,<\/p>\n

Michael Ignatieff<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted an exclusive copy of Stephen Harper’s Christmas letter. Today, a draft of Michael Ignatieff’s, obtained from my OLO contacts. I publish it here so that those of you not on Michael’s Christmas card list can get a look. Salutations my Canadian friends, Isaiah Berlin once proclaimed \u201cphilosophers are adults who persist in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,28],"tags":[1098],"class_list":["post-2491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-posts","category-humour","tag-michael-ignatieff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3492,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2491\/revisions\/3492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}