Is this a trend?
The U.S. just elected a real author as president, a man with two books that he actually wrote himself.
Sometime this year, Canadians could choose a writer to be their prime minister.
But unlike Barack Obama, Michael G. Ignatieff is an author who has done nearly all of his writing - 13 non-fiction works, three novels, and hundreds of magazine pieces - while living outside of his native land.
Indeed, though born in Canada, Ignatieff, 61, has spent 27 of the last 30 years living in either the United Kingdom or the United States. He returned to Canada in 2005 and was elected to Parliament the next year.
“His personality is a blank slate to his fellow citizens,” Michael Valpy reported in the Toronto Globe and Mail in December. “His private life — better known in Britain than here at home — has not appeared on the radar of the Canadian media.”
Nonetheless, in December, Ignatieff was elected interim leader of Canada’s Liberal Party. (The “interim” drops off in May.) And he’s given a good shot of leading the Liberals to victory in the next national election, which could happen this spring.
If the Liberals win, Ignatieff will succeed Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative.
“(Ignatieff’s) ascendancy puts his country on the cusp of an unusual moment, in some ways a throwback to the era of the dashing Pierre Trudeau, another smart-set intellectual who served as prime minister,” wrote Eric Konigsberg in The New York Times.
The son of George Ignatieff, a high-ranking Canadian diplomat, Ignatieff spent his early years living outside Canada.
He returned at age 11 to attend school at the elite Upper Canada College. From there he went to the University of Toronto, where he became close friends with Bob Rae, the man he defeated last year for the Liberal party leadership.
After graduating from Toronto, Ignatieff studied at Oxford University in England and then went to Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D.
He taught for two years at the University of British Columbia and then went to Cambridge University in England in 1978 as a research fellow. Six years later, Ingatieff left teaching and launched a career as a television host, a columnist and a journalist.
In 2000, Ignatieff returned to Harvard as the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
Samantha Power, a journalist and the center’s founding executive director, brought Ignatieff to the center. During the campaign, she was a foreign policy adviser to Obama campaign.
In 2003, Ignatieff made waves (and some enemies) in the liberal community by endorsing the war on Iraq.
Four years later, in a New York Times Magazine article, he recanted his position. By this time he was back in Canada and seeing things from a different perspective:
“I keep revisiting the Iraq debacle, trying to understand exactly how the judgments I now have to make in the political arena need to improve on the ones I used to offer from the sidelines,” he wrote.
“I’ve learned that acquiring good judgment in politics starts with knowing when to admit your mistakes.”
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10 Comments
#1. Durward 02.10.2009
Iggy’s books are fluff and don’t sell, why do you think he needs a golden pension from Ottawa?
Iggy’s views are immature and naive, but then he spend most of his adult life dealing with and talking down to students.
Iggy knows nothing of how the real world works and it has become apparent that he is a coward as well.
#2. Sandra 02.10.2009
Durwin - your comments are rather shallow and immature. Now, we have a PM (Harper) that ran down his own country in speeches at American think tank events.
Funny, if a person is educated the conservatives are in horror. So, conservatives - do you send you kids to university to get an education and become an elite because they are educated. Or, do you keep them uneducated so they won’t be considered elite.
Iggy doesn’t know about the real world? Good grief, he spent time as a journalist in war zones. And, Harper - spent time doing diddly.
God forbid a person gets and education and does something with it.
#3. Rodger Dodger 02.10.2009
Obama’s books were ghost-written.
#4. Jim 02.10.2009
Iggy should hope his books do sell. He needs six years as an MP to get the golden pension.
Like all true Liberals, his wind blows in whatever direction necessary tl get him into power. This even includes a dramatic turn-around in the Liberal stance on America.
For fifteen years the Liberals have demonized America; with a policy of NOT wanting to be like America from everything from Health Care to Foreign Policy. Now… they are actively pursuing a course of following and idolizing this country and the man currently leading it; even though this new President has yet to do anything substantive.
Political Opportunism… that is the Liberal demographic in Canada including the spinning of a caucus rebellion from Newfoundland & Labrador to try and convince the country that he was in control of his team.
The Liberal party will complete the coronation of Michael Ignatieff this spring however long gone are the days when the party values were aligned with the wishes of the people.
#5. Sandra 02.10.2009
And they wonder why conservatives are looked at like wingnuts. I suspect it’s jealousy more than anything.
So easy to criticize - so hard to say something useful and intelligent.
…sigh….
#6. Warren 02.10.2009
What about Dion? He was an intellectual politician. And it was his downfall.
#7. Elizabeth Montgomery 02.13.2009
Conservatives don’t want educated people - because educated people figure out that the Conservatives are liars.The original meaning of the word “Tory” was “highway robber”.
Stephane Dion’s downfall was not that he had a PhD obtained in France - but that he isn’t a vicious bully like Stephen Harper. Nobody knew that someone who has made it into the PMO could be such a nasty piece of work. The latest - suing the Opposition Party because he doesnt’ like what they said about the Cadman affair. Liar.
#8. Elizabeth Montgomery 02.13.2009
Durward - you sound like such a bright spark. Have you read any of Ignatieff’s books cover to cover?
Maybe Stephen Harper’s book on hockey would suit you better.
#9. Rose21 02.15.2009
Oh, Elizabeth Montgomery: “Conservatives don’t want educated people - because educated people figure out that the Conservatives are liars.” What a foolish, ill-informed view of our political world. As a (dare I say) educated Conservative, I am often tempted to dismiss most Liberals as shallow and self-serving — the party of the oligarchs. Then I remind myself that most parties are very big tents and that most people in those parties are well-intentioned. When we demonize those with an opposite point of view, we are often operating from a close-minded, narrow and fearful perspective.
There is a good portrayal of Stephen Harper in the latest issue of Walrus Magazine. You should read it. It explains what motivates him. He is indeed, from his perspective, trying to make Canada work better for all Canadians. You won’t agree with this, of course, because you have already decided that he is unworthy. You are like one of the blind people in H.G. Wells’ “In the Country of the Blind”. You need to consider the possibolity that you have misjudged Harper and the Conservative Party. They are not perfect, but they are really no worse than the Liberal Party, and for the time being, anyway, I think they are somewhat more honest (at least than recent Liberal governments) if only because they have not yet been in power that long. Don’t forget, the Conservatives do retain many supporters from the Reform Party (anathema to some). My view is that Reform was a grassroots movement to move away from parties run by Bay street elites and party insiders (the liars and the hypocrites.)
#10. Rose21 02.15.2009
Rodger Dodger — “Obama’s books were ghost-written.” — I had heard this as well. Because the style is quite different in each of the books, my conclusion is that at least one of them has been ghost written. Unfortunately, the lack of other writing from Obama makes it very difficult to draw conclusions about whether or not the books were actually written by him. It is very odd (I think) that in his tenure as the editor of the Harvard Law Review he did not write anything. Most editors do. Another odd thing, I think, is that he was given (roughly) $100,000 as an advance for his first book — written before he was in politics. So who gives virtual unknowns without any sort of track record in writing such a big advance. Just a bit strange to me.
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