A proud admirer ( Michel Botman Photography, Ottawa, March 2010)

Canada just experienced a radical shift to the left of the chessboard.  Yet by some ironical twist of sense, our conservative Prime Minister, the honorable and musically inclined Stephen Harper, got reelected with a perfidious majority … “with a little help from my (Quebec) friends”, he was heard singing jovially the next day …

It truly is the apex of irony to realize that all the left-wingers “de la belle Province” who voted in mass as far left as they could to defeat Harper ended-up offering him a majority on a silver platter.

I wonder how many of them will realize the humorous absurdity of their move?

In the mean time, our neighbor to the south, the mighty US of A, seems to have already started its own presidential elective process.  In another amusing twist of faith, the pursuit of Osama and its recent demise – a quest that uncle Bush had made its priority – could end-up helping reelect cousin Obama.

Mission accomplished?

Surely, “Le Malheur des uns fait he Bonheur des autres”.

Victory will remain elusive though.  Promises are always easier to make than to hold.

Four years ago, a young Barak was surprisingly surging in the polls, rising from obscurity.  I remember talking to my son Noah (whom from a very young age has always been passionate about politics) about this surprising shooting star:

« Tu va voir, », I said, with some foresight, « … il va casser la baraque … au bas mot! »

« Il va casser la quoi? » asked Noah, slightly startled by a French expression he had never heard.

« baraque, au bas mot», I said, … but this time, despite the Osama coup, I’m not so sure anymore …