"Dion stayed. And fought."

I've been looking for an excuse to post this photo again, and then along came this article.

My fave line is, "Dion stayed. And fought. To any Conservative (or Liberal) who thinks this guy isn't tough enough to be prime minister, maybe you'd better think again."

Conservatives best wake up
The Winnipeg Sun, The Toronto Sun
Lorrie goldstein

The more I learn about Stephane Dion, the more I think it would be dumb of the Conservatives to underestimate him.

I know, according to the punditocracy, the federal Liberal leader is a dud-man-walking.

But they also told us Stephen Harper was a dud and Paul Martin was dynamite.

Oops.

Two books suggest why Dion could be a serious threat in the next election.

The easier read is Linda Diebel's Stephane Dion, Against the Current, published earlier this year.

The tougher but more eye-opening one is 1999's Straight Talk -- a collection of Dion's speeches and writings when he was Canada's unity minister, following the near-disaster of the 1995 Quebec referendum.

Reading these pieces, you quickly discover that Dion is, like Harper, scary smart.

His speeches, letters and essays -- most given when he first entered Jean Chretien's cabinet on the advice of Chretien's wife, Aline -- literally demolish the separatists' arguments.

No wonder they hate him. He's smarter than they are. More>>