Interesting Times...

Dion to lead Liberal-NDP coalition, Liberals confirm
PM: Dion 'playing biggest political game in Canadian history'

Liberal caucus members agreed unanimously on Monday that Stéphane Dion will stay on to lead a Liberal-NDP coalition, after the two parties reached a tentative agreement to replace the minority Conservative government.

Let us deal swiftly with the outright hilarity of Stephen Harper accusing somebody, anybody, of playing political games. The Libs and the Dippers aren't playing any games that the Cons didn't start. All they're doing is calling a massively silly bluff.

In fact, this whole situation works well in poker terms. For about a year, and perhaps even earlier, Harper has been betting aggressively, daring the opposition (this is a heads-up game, by the way) to call him. Most of the time, however, the opposition has folded meekly, and Harper has collected the blinds. So this time, when Harper peeked at his hole cards and discovered 7-3 of clubs, he looked forward to more of the same, and bet big. He doubtless even looked forward to showing his hand after the anticipated capitulation, and to mocking his opponent for being bullied out of the pot.

However, instead of folding, the opposition grinned at him and re-raised all-in.

This puts Mr. Harper in a bit of spot. He could fold, which would leave him in control, but would also mean admitting that the opposition has him sussed, and that the bully bet, his favourite and perhaps only tactic, isn't likely to work anymore. Or he could call, and hope like hell that he flops something that allows him to beat the opposition's pair of queens. It could happen, but it's not really likely.

Anyway, it looks now like there's a pretty good chance that Stephane Dion will get to be Prime Minister after all. And I wouldn't mind that a bit.