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Stirring stuff, to be sure.

Trudeau’s tack to peacenik is all about finessing the left-right divide to get elected. To do that, remember, he not only has to beat Harper, he also needs to beat Mulcair, which goes a long way to explaining his recent political choices.

For those of you keeping track, Trudeau has now declined to support a military mission that is endorsed by literally everyone (the Pope!) except ISIL and the NDP, while declining to vote against anti-terror legislation that is vehemently opposed by a laundry list of credible critics with genuine concerns.

But don’t worry, Trudeau has threaded that needle too. Having signalled his opposition to Bill C-51, he then said he wouldn’t actually, you know, like, vote against it or anything. He’ll just punt the issue to the next Parliament, where he says he’ll fix it after the fact. Arrogance, it turns out, is an inherited trait.

Of course, rope a dope can be a winning strategy for an opposition leader hoping the incumbent will tire himself out, but it also requires keeping your gloves up. Perhaps Trudeau thought he was invincible when the Tory attack ads failed to fell him, but the fallout from the first Iraq debate rattled his cage and he hasn’t looked steady since.

The uniting thread appears to be Trudeau’s unwillingness to engage in a fight with the government when he knows he’s on the wrong side of public opinion. To wit, he stuck Marc Garneau and Joyce Murray out to defend the ISIL decisions and twisted himself into a pretzel to avoid debate on the second. But whom did he impress with that particular feat of engineering? The right now thinks he can’t be counted on to get tough on terror, while the left is angry that he isn’t standing up to be counted in the House of Commons. It’s too clever by half.