The reviews are in

Thomas Walkom:

It's hard to take the federal Liberals seriously. They claim they want to hold Prime Minister Stephen Harper to account. But they don't. They criticize the Conservative government endlessly. But when the crunch comes, they support it.

They say they'd handle the recession differently. But they rarely say how. And when points of difference do emerge – such as the handling of employment insurance – they invariably backtrack.

For the Liberals, the time is never right. They come up with endless excuses for never forcing an election on the minority Harper government: They don't have enough money; they don't have enough candidates; their leader is too new; the polls are inauspicious; the weather is too warm; the weather is too cold...

In the spring, they say wait until fall. In the fall, they say wait until spring.

When Stéphane Dion was their leader, they blamed him for everything. But at least Dion, with his plan to replace income with carbon taxes, gave some hint as to what he might do if elected.

By contrast, current Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is terminally vague. On the big economic questions, he attacks the government without saying what he'd do differently.

Ignatieff presents this as an asset, arguing that the point of being in opposition is to oppose. But in the context of the worst recession since the 1930s, his failure to articulate a clear alternative simply leaves the rest of us confused.
...
For Liberal satraps, all of this might be a clever way for their new leader to extricate himself from an election the party desperately wants to avoid. Outside of Ottawa, however, the rest of us are left scratching our heads and asking: Who are these ludicrous Liberals? And what exactly is it that they want?