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Everyone’s favourite cranky uncle Rex Murphy just can’t understand why more people don’t like Stephen Harper. Christ, he’s been prime minister for seven years. Can’t you jerks give the guy a break already?

As it turns out, no. A new poll released last week showed that most people who didn’t vote for Harper still, somehow, don’t like Harper. Go figure!

To Rex Murphy, however, this just shows that people are being close-minded about ol’ Steve, who is probably a really rad dude. In his National Post column, he begs his readers to reconsider:

For, step back a little, make a little space, and you will see that in his personal and domestic conduct, Harper is almost stereotypically Canadian. He’s a mild, unobnoxious, hockey-mad fellow. He doesn’t boast. He shuns the spotlight he could be commanding every day. He keeps his privacy and doesn’t insist, like many public figures, in conducting a soap opera around his position or his family. He’d be the ideal neighbour — he wouldn’t just drop in, too reserved for that (which is great), but I’m sure he’d lend a shovel when needed. Probably even help dig out your car if you were stuck, and take your thanks with a self-conscious smile and reassurance that it was no trouble.

This imaginary Harper, whom Rex has obviously spent many hours contemplating, stands in stark contrast to the Harper described in Lawrence Martin’s 2010 book Harperland. In that book, both critics and loyalists describe the “dark, vindictive side of his character” and how intensely personal politics is to him. He is driven, above all else, by a deep “hatred for his opponents“.

Both of these things could be true, of course, and just because Harper might be a good neighbour doesn’t mean people who disagree with him politically are all wrong. But for Murphy, this is just another excuse to trot out his liberal elitist strawman, proof that all of Harper’s opponents just think themselves superior to the prime minister because, “after all, they have the best tables at Twitter Café.”

Murphy doesn’t explain what exactly “Twitter Café” is but it’s probably best not to challenge him on this. He is, after all, very knowledgeable about technology.

I urge anyone thinking of buying a tablet to get the Playbook. It is actually way cooler and more practical to carry around. — Rex Murphy (@RexMurphy1) July 25, 2011

National Post