If history repeats, we are about a decade away from the publication of a book called "The Strange Death of Liberal Canada."

On the weekend, at the Summit of the Americas, Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed doubt about the war on drugs. "I think what everybody believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do."

It's admirable for a politician to admit uncertainty. And rare. Especially for a politician who has never expressed anything less than unshakable conviction in the Reaganite nostrums of drug prohibition. But Harper had good reason to be a little shaken.

In British Columbia, the premier is a woman. In Alberta, the premier is a woman. Both women inherited successful political dynasties. Both are likely to lead their parties to defeat.

Call it the "Kim Campbell Phenomenon." Successful political parties that make women leaders have an unfortunate tendency to lose.

As big as the F-35 fiasco appears, its true import is bigger. And more worrisome.

To see it, we first need to look at the world of 75 years ago.

I was born in the middle of generation X. The job market I entered was dismal, so I got nowhere, went back to school, piled up debt, and returned to a slightly less dismal job market. Then I turned 30. And the whole time I envied baby boomers, with their Beaver Cleaver childhoods, their memories of Woodstock and disco, their golden job markets, their yuppiedom, their stocks, real estate, and Club Med vacations. It all came to them on an engraved silver tray.

And now? Of course. For my generation, and the rest of us in third class, the age of eligibility for Old Age Security will be pushed up, but only after the boomers retire and start living off our taxes.

Oh, the generational unfairness of it all.

American presidents who seek re-election when the economy is weak almost always lose. Badly. To buck that trend, the Obama campaign is trying a new and challenging strategy.

So it's agreed then. The NDP split between a stodgy old guard and those willing to move the party to the centre and 24 Sussex Drive. The latter won. Now, Thomas Mulcair will move the NDP to the centre in a bid to take power.

Or so goes the standard narrative. But where did that narrative come from? Spin and repetition, mostly.

With a little help from amnesia.

I understand why people are furious at the two-year sentence imposed on Graham James but all the angry shouting and demands for tougher punishments won't do anything to correct the very real problems with criminal sentencing in Canada. It could even make those problems a little worse.

The House of Commons was tense. "We have, on numerous occasions, called for a judicial inquiry into the scandal," the Opposition leader said. "In order to reassure us that there will be no interference in the investigation into the prime minister's own party, is he prepared to agree to a judicial inquiry, yes or no?"

In 1928, a 37-year-old American army major named Dwight Eisenhower was ordered to write an official history of the army in the First World War. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, sailed for France and settled into a luxurious Paris apartment.

Both Ike and Mamie started French lessons. Mamie wasn't very motivated and she made little progress. But Major Eisenhower was an ambitious, energetic, and determined man. He would master the language.