Barack Obama describes his Christian faith in front of an audience, in part to justify his high-tax class-warfare policies.

But in case you had doubts, he assures you his Christian-inspired policies are right because other religions teach the same thing.

Um, that's not quite how faith is supposed to work.

When President Obama made an address at the National Prayer Breakfast, he explained that his class-warfare policies were rooted in his religious faith.

Does Obama have faith?  He says he does, and apparently it's quite the show sometimes:

He added: "I have fallen on my knees with great regularity since that moment [upon meeting with the Reverend Billy Graham] -- asking God for guidance not just in my personal life and my Christian walk, but in the life of this nation and in the values that hold us together and keep us strong."

Falling to his knees?  With great regularity?  Maybe he really has discovered his Christian faith.

But then again, probably not.  The problem is that while singing "Hallelujah!" and quoting the Golden Rule, the true Obama peeks through:

"I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God's command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself,'" Obama said. "I know the version of that Golden Rule is found in every major religion and every set of beliefs -- from Hinduism to Islam to Judaism to the writings of Plato."

He sounds like a toothpaste commercial. Three out of four major religions recommend the Golden Rule to their adherents.

The problem is simply this.  If Obama were truly wearing an authentic and deep Christian faith on his sleeve, he wouldn't bolster his argument by comparing Christian teaching with other faiths.  A person of faith doesn't need the agreement of other faiths to know that what he is doing is right.

It's simple really.  Did Mohammad put the Golden Rule into the Koran?  Who cares?  If you pointed out a passage in the Koran that read like the Golden Rule in Luke 10:25, would it make me think that the Golden Rule must therefore be more significant than I had previously thought?

No more so than how my appreciation of Shakespeare would be enhanced if you showed me a quote fromHamletthat had been produced bya monkey labouring for years at a typewriter.

Which is to say, not at all.

In both cases, the correspondence is a product of random chance.  On the one side is a divinely-inspired edict for how to live a good life and a quote from the greatest playwright of the English language, and on the other side are words that happen to look the more or less the same -- by accident.

And before the fatwa machine gets revved up, let me be absolutely clear.  I am not drawing a parallel between Mohammad and a monkey.

I am drawing a parallel between Mohammad and a monkey with a typewriter.

OK, we can move on.

Back to Obama.  On the one hand, he tries to ingratiate himself with the predominantly Christian audience (and by extension, the American electorate) by describing the Obama Revivalist Jamboree.  But then he assures his left-wing supporters that really, he treats all religious beliefs as morally equivalent, and by inference, equally irrelevant, just like they do.

A person of faith wouldn't ever do that.

A person with no particular faith might, but then the clever ones wouldn't be switching back and forth in front of the same audience.

Thomas Mulcair, a candidate for the leadership of the NDP and so the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, won't give any consideration to the discomfort many Canadians feel regarding Mulcair's dual citizenship.  That other citizenship?  It's French.  Why did it have to be French?

Let's be brutally honest here.  The news that NDP leadership candidateThomas Mulcair would retain his dual citizenshipshould he ever become prime minister is generating a lot of discomfort, aggravated by the simple fact that his other citizenship is French.

Yes, that's the politically incorrect elephant in the room.

But for a lot of people, there is something in French arrogance that makes them particularly suspicious of people like Mulcair who have actively pursued that citizenship (as opposed to being French by an accident of birth).

Imagine a Prime Minister Mulcair engaged in delicate negotiations with the French President.  The French President is trying to sway Mulcair to his side, away from a position that aligns Canada with the United States regarding this hypothetical crisis.  So the French President leans over, and says, "Thomas, this is silly.  We both know I am right on this.  The Americans are cowboys who think life is like a comic book. You know this to be true.  But you and I, we know how the world works, because we are French."

Am I being silly?  Substitute "because we are New Zealanders" for "because we are French", and the whole thing sounds ridiculous.  No Kiwi would ever say such an absurd thing.  Only a Frenchman thinks the French are blessed with some sort of unique sophistication that puts them above other mere mortals.

I'm not imagining this.  Recently, a French attempt to use the EU to run roughshod over the sovereign nations of Europe was vetoed by the British, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made it clear that he thought the British weren't merely wrong, but that they lacked the intellectual capacity tounderstand"the subtleties" of the EU in the way the French can:

French president Nicolas Sarkozy launched an astonishing attack on Britain's attitude to Europe last night.

The furious French leader was branded the 'new de Gaulle' after claiming the British can't comprehend Europe because we are 'an island'.

'You come from an island, so maybe you don't understand the subtleties of European construction,' he snapped at BBC Newsnight's economics editor Paul Mason.

Mr Sarkozy had been asked whether it was right for the European Union to be attempting to block an EU referendum and install a coalition government in Greece.

Imagine Sarkozy stroking Mulcair's ego, appealing to him as a fellow Frenchman, commiserating on how exhausting it must be for Mulcair to have to deal with so many of the unsubtle Anglos.

None of the other dual-citizenships likely to be held by a Canadian prime minister (British-Canadian, Australian-Canadian, Jamaican-Canadian, and so on) makes me imagine a situation in which that appeal to the "natural superiority" of the Brit-Aussie-Jamaican-whatever makes any sense.

Just the French.  Arrogance from their ruling elite comes as natural as breathing. 

Hey, maybe there's a reason why Mulcair would hold on to that French citizenship despite the political damage it is likely to inflict on him in English Canada.  I suppose if there's a chance that I might be caught withmy Polanski showing, I would like to know that I could run to the extradition-proof safety of France where that sort of thing doesn't bother the ultra-sophisticated French.  For Thomas Mulcair's sake, I hope his intransigence over the issue ofCanadianswanting aCanadianprime minister, no ifs or buts, is rooted in something less unseemly.

Then again, I'm English, so of course I can't be expected to understand the subtleties.

Daniel Turp, a separatist, wants the courts to apply Canada's Constitution to the decision by the Canadian government to leave the Kyoto Protocol.  Exactly what part of the Constitution makes the Kyoto Protocol a forever-binding commitment is not spelled out.  But no matter.  Even if the law is not on his side, Daniel Turp is making an effort to get the mob on his side.  Nothing trumps the law like a crowd of angry separatists.

As an amusing side note, none other than uber-environmentalist Al Gore has said that appealing to the mob is valid when the law or the facts are not on your side.

Daniel Turp, a former MP, wants the judiciary to override the will of the majority in the House of Commons.

Good luck with that.

Here is what Daniel Turp is complaining about with regards tothe Kyoto Protocol:

A former Quebec politician is planning legal action against the Conservative government for pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, calling the move unconstitutional.

Daniel Turp, a former Parti Quebecois MNA and Bloc MP, said he is going to ask the federal court to block Ottawa's controversial decision, and is calling on Canadians to join his legal campaign.

"It's not abiding by the law, or the law on the books," said Turp, referring to the Kyoto Implementation Act passed by the House of Commons in 2007.

Turp, who now teaches international and constitutional law at the University of Montreal, launched an online petition for Canadians to support his plan because he believes"citizens should have a voice."

Now the online element of his effort is telling.  Like any activist lawyer, he follows three rules first enunciated by none other thanAl Gore:

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

Nothing hollers as loud as the mob, which is what Daniel Turp is trying to whip up.  If the law, or for that, the facts, were on Daniel Turp's side, he wouldn't have to get a mob together coming out of the gate.  But I think he knows that the law does nothing to prevent the duly elected government of Canada from leaving the Kyoto Protocol, as allowed by the Protocol.  The Canadian legislation known as the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act is hinged on Canada's ratification of the Protocol (see the Preamble), so without the Protocol, there is nothing to implement.

In any case, legislation can be repealed, and in this case, it will be.

As for the facts, well, who really believes in global warming anymore?  I think we've seen more than enough emails to convince most reasonable people that climate alarmists posing as scientists have long since despaired of finding enough measurable facts to support their global warming fantasy.

But back to Daniel Turp and his allegation that leaving the Kyoto Protocol is unconstitutional.

How exactly does Canada's Constitution make it illegal for the Canadian government to exercise its power to leave the Kyoto Protocol, as allowed by the Kyoto Protocol?

Heck, for that matter, who cares if Article 27 of the Kyoto Protocol didn't exist?  Canada is still a sovereign nation, and what external power is going to brought to bear to compel Canada to be part of a protocol to which the electedmajoritygovernment has decided it wants nothing to do with?

The article in the CBC is short on detail.  Daniel Turp does not quote what part of the Constitution applies to this situation, and what part makes exercising the right to leave as described in Article 27 unconstitutional.  Nor does it appear that anyone has posed the question, or if the question was asked, the decision was taken not to print the response.

That response, if there was one, I suspect consisted of the shrugging of shoulders followed by foam-flecked ranting about global warming and then topped off with some snide remark about how Quebec is far more enlightened or some such thing.

I am always suspicious of people who claim something they don't like is "unconstitutional".  Invariably, the portion of the Constitution that applies exists only in their imaginations.

I am doubly suspicious of separatists and the way constitutionality is an elastic concept, bent in any way they consider convenient, under pressure from the mob if necessary (or even preferably).