Selective framing

Stephen Maher blurts out the assumption which seems to underlie most current treatment of Afghanistan :

We are in for a long, difficult struggle between the Tories and the Liberals to control the frame of the debate over Afghanistan, with the NDP and the Bloc on the sidelines, since they are both calling for the mission to end.

Needless to say, neither Maher nor many others looking for a Lib/Con agreement to give Deceivin' Stephen everything he wants seem all that interested in speaking to the sixty-odd per cent of Canadians who don't want to see an extension past 2009. But fortunately, there's little indication that any of the NDP, the Bloc, or the majority of Canadians intends to put up with being arbitrarily sidelined - and it's far from too late to push the frame back to what Canadians actually want to see done, rather than accepting Harper's efforts to manipulate elite opinion as defining the boundaries of the debate.