In their editorial this morning, the National Post suggests that our long national nightmare is almost over.

Just 23 more days of limbo

At long last, Canadians have been given a timetable for the transition of power in our country’s highest office. Sadly, it has come months — if not years — too late, and only after some of the most childish political gamesmanship Ottawa has ever seen. We hope the governing Liberals put all this behind them quickly: Canadians deserve a government that is focused on sound policy, not internal struggles. [...]

With yesterday’s announcement, and the two men’s apparent willingness to tolerate each other for as long as the transition will take, we hope this ugly chapter is behind us. In coming months, Mr. Martin must waste no time shifting his caucus’s focus from petty gamesmanship to weightier matters.

This argument is made so frequently, it has become the Accepted Wisdom among Canadian gumflappers, even among the supposed right-wingers. “Thank goodness the internal Liberal power struggle is over! Now we can get to some real governing!”

Holy smokes, people, talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Explain to me again how it can be a BAD thing to distract a Liberal from governing? I can paraphrase PJ O’Rourke and say that, to me, this is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.

Frankly, the best government we’ve ever SEEN has been provided by an internally distracted Liberal party. Let’s look at the massive social programs begun in the last year:

zero.

Or the massive tax hikes:

zero.

Or the social engineering:

almost zero.

They’ve basically done NOTHING. Okay, so I despise Chretien as much as the next mammal, but this guy was practically Libertarian in his accomplishments. In a whimperingly socialist burg like Canada, holding the line on government growth counts as a big win for me. Compare this to Martin: in his address to the Liberal convention last week, every liberal convention was invoked:

We must work together! As Canadians! For the Future! Of Tomorrow’s Children!

Thank God he didn’t say “with the Internet!” or I would have puked.

But I am not optimistic about Monsieur Martin. He looks like he wants to do a lot of government fiddling, which will inevitably be bad. In fact, I’ll bet you a (yankee) dollar: in one year’s time, libertarians are going to be PINING for the days of Chretien’s lazy nothingness.