There is an interesting moment in any infatuation when you have the opportunity how you will come to hate the thing now beloved. John Doyle, last Saturday in The Globe and Mail, did a pretty good job identifying one way the wheels might come off the Paul Martin red wagon:

Television likes and highlights the authentic spirit of the individual - the grit and the kernal of empathy with ordinary experience. Paul Martin appears hollow and deeply uninteresting on TV....To call Paul Martin wooden would be an insult to truly wooden characters on TV, such as the literally wooden children's favorite Theodore Tugboat, who seems animated and lively in comparison.

Martin has spent the best part of a decade and a half lusting after the office which is now days away from his grip. He has been touted as everything from the person to have saved Canada from financial ruin to a real pal to a real rock star, Bono [which only goes to prove there is too much pop culture in the culture]. Like Bono, Martin has never had to actually prove his claims to messianic status - both are surrounded by deeply impenetrable mechanisms obscuring the real personal role and character.

Perhaps he too will have to use oh-so-'95 sunglasses to cover up the look when he has nothing to say. I know I am already a bit tired of the look to the ceiling with a cheeky laugh which seems to excuse a thousand sins. Will that be his Turner's throat clearing... Mulroney's licking of the lips?