I suppose I could write a substantive and serious column about the government's omnibus crime bill.

Tim Hudak is the sort of politician who searches for the inchoate fears and hatreds that lie, unspoken, just below the surface of consciousness. When he finds them, he drags them up and waves them for all to see, hoping that ugly emotions will serve his political purposes. He is what an earlier generation would have called a "rabble rouser."

And so it was probably inevitable that Hudak would turn his attention to sex offenders.

There are moments when Stephen Harper is utterly unfathomable.

The latest came last week, in an interview with the CBC. Almost casually, the prime minister said he would reinstate emergency anti-terrorism powers - allowing judges to compel witnesses to testify in secret hearings and police to jail terrorism suspects without warrant for up to three days.

Last week's tears and testimonials have given rise to a new conventional wisdom. "The response to Jack Layton's death suggests Canadians are looking for a political leader who transcends the grubby world of politics as usual," as John Ivison put it in the National Post.

That would be lovely if it were true. But recent history provides little reason to think it is.

Without exception, a successful politician is a lucky politician. But some successful politicians are more successful, and luckier, than others. Stephen Harper is a very successful politician.

Jack Layton was a politician and a partisan, to the bone, but he didn't treat politics as a dark art. With his famous smile and boundless enthusiasm, he won people over, in his party and others, and got them to work together in pursuit of shared goals.

There is a fitting way to honour such a man.

This column will delight many conservatives and annoy liberals. As I'll explain at the end, that reaction is the point of the column. Don't disappoint me.

The Harper government is absolutely right that we have a problem with charities getting involved in politics: They don't do it nearly enough.

The United Nations and national governments the world over, including Canada's, are actively promoting an epidemic. They are infecting people by the tens and hundreds of thousands. God knows how many will die.

Well done, concerned citizens. For weeks, in vast numbers, across the nation, you expressed outrage that a public school in Toronto permits Muslim students to pray for half an hour each Friday. In the school cafeteria. A cafeteria built with tax dollars. Your tax dollars.

Clearly, this offends the great Canadian constitutional commitment to the separation of church and state, which doesn't exist, and you said so in no uncertain terms. Religion has no place in a public school! Not even the cafeteria! Stand away from the chili con carne and french fries, Imam! Get those Korans out of our proud agora!

But there were worse revelations to come.