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That these positions are not as incompatible as partisans of both the right and the left would suppose is a reasonable enough premise. But the middle ground in politics can be as treacherous as it is inviting; the two extremes can as easily combine to devour any moderate interlopers as they can be separately marginalized. To hold that particularly dangerous piece of turf it is not sufficient to remind folks of your sunny benevolence, or repeat endless variations on “the economy and the environment go hand in hand.” You have to be both tactically smart and strategically wise. You have to think it through.

The Liberals have tried to reconcile their belief in their own superior virtue with their desire for worldly success by insisting that they were not obliged to choose between them because, in fact, no choices needed to be made

This last is not, needless to say, the current generation of Liberals’ strong point. They are very good at the symbolic gesture, the leap of faith, the exuberant tossing of one’s hat over the wall. They are not so good at figuring out how to retrieve it. And so, on issues ranging from pipelines to carbon taxes to trade negotiations, the Liberals’ once-soaring pride has given way to a gathering awareness of the earth below. It turns out governing isn’t as simple as it appears, even for those seemingly born to it.

The mishandling of each is by now familiar. On pipelines, the Liberals first allowed the options to dwindle to one; then signalled such desperation that the last option, the Trans Mountain extension, be built that they were obliged to pay its private-sector sponsor several billion dollars to take it off its hands; only to discover, thanks to this week’s Federal Court of Appeal ruling, that they had no lawful authority to build it, having failed to engage in the same meaningful consultation with Aboriginal groups they had demanded of the previous government, and had made such a show of promising themselves.