‘Ignatieff loves the smell of barnyard scat in the morning’

Insert Stephen Harper joke here?

Not my statement; it’s from the lede of a story about the new leader of Canada’s Liberals .

Some Liberals, and certainly, Canada’s New Democratic Party, will probably argue that Ignatieff likes that smell 24/7. He’s on record as being lukewarm about a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Quebecois coalition to oust Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

If Harper’s non-gladhanding hand turns out to have a shiv for Ignatieff’s back, I can’t see but that the Liberals will tumble into near-irrelevance in the next Canadian general election, running third nationally.

And, all this intertwines with the next Liberal party caucus in May; not only will Ignatieff have to have worked to stood up to Harper by then, he’ll have to have healed any intraparty wounds over the leadership chase.