And if a house be divided against itself...

Many critics of the Liberal-NDP proposed coalition pointed out that both parties explicitly rejected such an arrangement during the recent election campaign. Now that Parliament has been prorogued and enthusiasm for the coalition has begun to wane, Liberal leadership hopeful Bob Rae has emerged as its champion. I admire Rae's commitment to an alliance which is quickly falling into disfavour among Liberals [Michael Ignatieff, for example, did not refer to the coalition once in today's email to his supporters] as it is an idea to which he has ardently given his support in the past. For example, Rae wrote on his blog this past September: "We need to build a progressive coalition to defeat the Harperites."

However, in the same post Rae scolded the NDP for their self-interested attacks on the Liberals and the Greens. "The point is not to criticize Harper," he wrote. "It is to replace him. And the NDP can't do that, because in the end it will always revert to the Two Themes: class warfare and character assassination."

Bob Rae saves his harshest disapproval for the leader: "Jack Layton thinks he's Obama. What a joke."

One wonders how the Liberal party ever thought it could successfully co-govern with the Dippers when the party's most prominent coalitionist considers "Jack Layton's NDP" to be both inept and delusional. What a joke.