"What a minority Parliament provides is you actually get to see decisions made."
  -- Tim Murphy, Prime Minister's chief of staff, May 20, 2005

So that's what it looks like, eh Tim? I mean, you hear stories, catch the odd glimpse, and occasionally witness an embarrassing inquiry or two into what exactly goes on behind the scenes, but how enlightening it was to actually see the wheels of government spinning in all their self-preserving glory while Parliament Hill indulged itself in a round of Let's Make A Deal that made regular game show prizes look like childish pocket change.

I feel like I'm the only one who didn't get a cabinet post offer.

Of course, I don't have the cellphone number of Mr. Murphy, the power broker of Parliament Hill, who can turn all your Conservative dreams into Liberal red cabinet cushions faster than you can say "political opportunism." But, to the man of the moment and saviour of the collective federal Liberal hide, this is all par for the course and a fine bit of politics, noble even, for as Mr. Murphy says, "A minority Parliament is as good a response to the democratic deficit as there is!"

I don't know about you, but I didn't cast a vote for last-minute deal making and off-the-cuff budgetary promises, much less cabinet portfolios changing hands every time the Prime Minister hears the sound of moving vans on the way to 24 Sussex.

Many will point to the merits of minority government, that it forces compromise and a balanced approach to policy and legislation. Implicit in this are the unquestioned ideas that compromise is good, that the answer lies somewhere in the middle, and a little give and take is always a good thing.

Those who think this are also prone to buying people Cokes and breaking into song about peace and harmony. But while compromise may be necessary from time to time, it's another thing to suggest it as the best mechanism for effective government.

Depending who you talk to, the Liberals, in little more than a few weeks, committed to spend anywhere from 9 to 20 billion dollars in taxpayers' money doling out lucrative goodies across the country and putting smiley faces on Premiers and MPs alike. And while some of the initiatives that the NDP wrangled out of the Liberals in one night of "compromise" are certainly worth considering and possibly, in the long run, positive things, you can't tell me that billion-dollar decisions made in a frenzy of self-preservation constitutes reasoned, considered, budgetary planning.

The compromise should have happened months ago, in a budget that had the Conservatives and NDP both onside, not over a quick cup of coffee after Paul Martin's knees started to shake with fear at the latest polling numbers.

Not that the budget has actually been passed yet; it still has two more readings and four more votes to go, making it likely that we'll see more cabinet shuffles and possibly a patronage-fueled plague of newly appointed ambassadors fanning out across the globe before it's done.

But it did not stop there. Having spent the last year blowing hot air about a "responsibility to protect" and rejuvenating world relations with his vaunted L20 initiative, yet doing absolutely nothing to actually push the UN anywhere except perhaps a bit closer to the shrimp dip, Paul Martin suddenly decided to send 100 troops to Darfur to appease former Liberal and now activist Independent MP David Kilgour. Sudan doesn't want our help, the UN isn't unified enough to do anything other than study the problem, and we're going to send troops with no direction, sanction, or welcome into a hotspot we haven't done a thing to help until now, just because Paul Martin's parking spot was threatened?

If Tim Murphy is right, this is how it's always done: quickly and with little regard for the actual people such decisions affect. What drives government is not a sense of public duty, but job security. Vision is non-existent, save for a myopic focus on the tickertape of public opinion.

It's the cynic's view of government, and now we know that it really is true, just in case you had any doubts.

Benevolent dictatorship, anyone?