WHY HE'S LEAVING

Barry Penner announced yesterday that he is resigning his post as BC Attorney General.

He wants to spend more time with his wife and daughter.

Fair enough.

He is heading to the women in his life. This is understandable.

But it is hardly the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Ask the other women in his life - his sister and his cousin and his aunt. (I don't rightly know if Mr. Penner has a sister, but if he did, I'd ask her and she'd tell me more than this public performance.)

What is much closer to the whole story and much more interesting is that Penner is running away from one woman inparticular.

Her name is Christy Clark and, at least for the next little while, she is the Premier of the province.

No doubt Mr. Penner is now officially part of the swelling legions of citizens who have come to see Premier Cark with a bit more clarity.

Delightful, charming, a fighter, an enthusiastic campaigner - yes, all that and more.

But she is not a policy maker or governor.

She hasn't a single idea with heft or depth or the possibility of living past the moment after it pops forth from her mouth.

One wonders if she even has or had at the outset a vision for what she wanted to accomplish in office or what she wanted the province to become under her tutelage.

No. She really just relished the race to the office and the trumphal moment of sitting in the big chair.

As a result, folks all around Ms. Clark are heading back to the sheep farms and goat teas.

At least the livestock don't pretend to offer anything more than wool and sour milk.

She will be gone from office within the year.