Trudeau peaking too soon
PM crosses off whirlwind ‘summit’
Par is. Vancouver. Washington. Ottawa. Have we reached Peak Summit? This is not, of course, the same thing as summit peak — which in any case is a redundancy. It feels like Justin Trudeau has already had more summits than months in office. And for those fond of prime ministerial altitudes, do not despair. Already there’s another one on the calendar.
For even before t he Obama- Trudeau bonding rites were concluded or the appetizers had been l aid out for the state dinner, there was the announcement that, hospitality being a mutual exercise, Trudeau, guest of summits innumerous, will play host to his own in June.
The Three Amigos Summit, a jamboree for the Western Hemisphere, will convene in Ottawa, where Trudeau will meet ( again) with President Ba rack Obama and, to diversify the guest list and possibly as a beckoning token to Donald Trump’s wall- building eye, the president of Mexico will also attend.
That’s a lot of summits. Add to that the rich brocade of international press coverage, and Trudeau is having a triumphal tour of unheralded magnitude.
Vanity Fair, Vogue, the Daily Mail, 60 Minutes, t he Panda Heritage Moment at Toronto’s zoo — he generates more gloss than Revlon and threatens single- handedly to rescue the lifestyle pages of a thousand newspapers. It is truly an unprecedented burst of glittering gatherings and adulatory attention.
Well, al most. Obama began his term on even higher terrain. He was in Cairo addressing the Muslim world even as the dew was fresh on his presidency. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ( which has become t he world’s most distinguished Boy Scouts’ badge) bare weeks into his term, and won it before his first year was up. Which considering the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the drift in Iraq, the imperial spread of Iran in the Middle East, the melee and massacre in Syria, the disintegration of Libya now appears not only premature, but severely ironic.
The honours and attention that flooded the Obama presidency while it was still, so to speak, in its Bethlehem stable might offer some cautions for Trudeau.
As to this week’s clinking of the Champagne glasses in the White House, while it’s always nice for Canada, or her representatives, to be in America’s and the world’s eye, too much should not be made of it. For just as Trudeau is in the dawn of his term, Obama trips toward the midnight of his. Trudeau is hardly ready to know what to ask, Obama every day loses the power to give. “Authority forgets a dying king.”
I do not wish to micro-aggress the sensitive readers of the National Post, but it is entirely plausible the l eader the Canadian government should subject to a charm offensive is not the departing light bearer, Obama, but t he current master of the Republican r e vels, t he anti- Obama Donald Trump.
Finall y, summits are great PR, and cover shoots are great boosters to vanity and self- esteem, both national and personal. They are tone and ceremony. All the real work takes place in the valleys.
I’m sure this week’s was a was a great concord of temperament and style for both men. I’d also hazard, that at least at the level of political mischief, it was as much a mute celebration of who isn’t at 24 Sussex these days, Stephen Harper, as striking up the band for the new man — following repairs — moving in.
SUMMITS ARE GREAT PR ... WORK TAKES PLACE IN THE
VALLEYS.