Secretive, controlling, manipulative, crude, autocratic, vicious, unprincipled, untrustworthy, paranoid

Andrew Coyne is a political analyst, journalist, and member of CBC-TV's At Issue panel. He is no lover of Canadian Gliberals and Kneedippers. His politics are generally MOR, leaning perhaps to the right. One must pay attention, then, when he excoriates the Conservative government of Steve "Stephen" Harper.

This he does in "The economy is in good shape, so why is support for the Conservatives slumping?" in today's National Post. I hope Mr. Coyne and his publisher will not mind if Walt reprints a large chunk of his column -- an excellent explanation of why Harper and his party are even more reviled by Canadians than his role model, the execrable Lyin' Brian Mulroney.

Mr. Malarkey at least had a twinkle in his eye and the charm and blarney of a son of the ould sod. Harper has none of this, only the character of a self-righteous, self-satisfied bully. And that is why, unless there is a major distraction or disruption between now and 2015, the Harper-led "Nasty Party" -- Coyne's phrase -- will lose the election due in that year. (Lifetime pct .986.)

Here is Mr. Coyne's view.

If today both Mr. Harper and the party he leads are actively disliked by more than seven voters in 10, it may be because they have gone out of their way to alienate them in every conceivable way — not by their policies, or even their record, but simply by their style of governing, as over-bearing as it is under-handed, and that on a good day.

When they are not refusing to disclose what they are doing, they are giving out false information; when they allow dissenting opinions to be voiced, they smear them as unpatriotic or worse; when they open their own mouths to speak, it is to read the same moronic talking points over and over, however these may conflict with the facts, common courtesy, or their own most solemn promises.

Secretive, controlling, manipulative, crude, autocratic, vicious, unprincipled, untrustworthy, paranoid … Even by the standards of Canadian politics, it’s quite the performance. We’ve had some thuggish or dishonest governments in the past, even some corrupt ones, but never one quite so determined to arouse the public’s hostility, to so little apparent purpose. Their policy legacy may prove short-lived, but it will be hard to erase the stamp of the Nasty Party.

Perhaps, in their self-delusion, the Tories imagine this is all the fault of the Ottawa media, or the unavoidable cost of governing as Conservatives in a Liberal country. I can assure them it is not. The odium in which they are now held is well-earned, and entirely self-inflicted.