Consistency is the Theme of the Day

U of Ottawa Prof and twitter pal Phillipe Lagassé pondered this morning:

Anybody feel Prime Minister Harper is using Parliament (being in mid-election campaign) as an excuse to not make difficult decisions about the Libya mission?

I immediately responded back that this worked for the Afghanistan mission--that when asked, Harper would always say that he would respect the parliamentary mandate to end the combat mission in Kandahar in 2011.  This was almost a non sequitor  as the PM could exert some political effort and spend some capital to get the mission renewed as he did in 2008.  So, it struck me that Harper views Parliament as the drunk in the old saying views the lampost--for support, not illumination. 

Harper has been consistent in his inconsistency: Parliament matters and is an important constraint when he wants to be constrained, and it is not when he does not want to be constrained. 

I don't know much about the powers of the PM, Parliament, the Crown and such stuff, whereas Phil does.  His tweets suggest that Harper's consistent inconsistency is not consistent with Canadian laws, conventions or practice.  While I don't consistently agree with Phil (as our Sunday morning tweet battles prove), I will consistently concur with him on Harper's drunken view of Parliament.