Paul Martin is apparently being dogged with questions about his trip around the tsunami-ravaged countries of Asia, and the main one seems to be, “Why did he go?” The answer is very clear. Paul Martin went as a representative of “Team Canada”, and played a “very important geo-political” role, as he was “totally focussed on transactions.”

There’s an episode of The Simpsons where the creators of ultra-violent cartoon show “Itchy and Scratchy” are having a focus group to come up with a new character. As one writer opines during the meeting: “Aren’t those just buzzwords that stupid people use to try and make it look as though they’re intelligent? … I’m fired, aren’t I?”

Exactly. Paul Martin felt the need to do something in the wake of the tsunami as an exercise in the accumulation of political capital. Correction: he felt the need to be seen to be doing something, and this is exactly what the trip was, a show put on for the world and for Canada, in which the only noteable achievement was the wasting of quite a lot of taxpayer dollars (that could, ironically, have gone to tsunami relief) and a slight rise in the average Canadian IQ while Paul Martin was out of the country.

Martin wraps up 9-day mission to Asia parrying questions about why he went

Prime Minister Paul Martin’s weeklong visit to four countries and six cities in southeast Asia was bookended by a central question: Why was he there?

The seemingly straightforward querie tied the prime minister and his officials in knots from the first time it was asked 11 days ago to the final day of the marathon trek, which wound up late Sunday night with Martin’s 20-hour return flight to Ottawa from Hong Kong.