You know, I never thought I'd see the day when a Prime Minister would beg for his job on national television. It's a bit unseemly, when you think about it. Trudeau generally just gave people the finger, Mulroney had that evil grin that said go screw yourself if you don't like it, and Chrétien might strangle you if you had a pie in your hand, but not Paul Martin. Our apologizing, imploring, and outright pleading Prime Minister of the twenty-first century wants us to give him ten more months in office and a collective hug; though why we should is utterly unclear.

Perhaps he just needs more time to get 24 Sussex spruced up for Stephen Harper.

Clinging by his fingernails to a job he spent years toiling and backstabbing to get, and mere months to make a mockery of, Martin is trying everything short of declaring a state of national emergency to keep his seat in parliament...you know, the one he never actually sits in.

He wants us to wait and see what Judge Gomery has to say, read the final report, and then go to the polls and speak our collective electoral mind, as if Gomery is going to somehow determine that it was all a big misunderstanding and give the Liberal Party a squeaky clean bill of health.

What's more likely is that we'll be buried in so much dirt we'll need a backhoe just to dig our way to a polling station.

And quite frankly, the Gomery Inquiry is nothing more than a thick layer of sour icing on an already collapsed cake of a government, whose leader has offered nothing but talk, promises, mixed messages, changed goals and dithering leadership since he took the reins in 2003.

Paul Martin is not just a disappointment as Prime Minister, but a colossal failure on just about every scale you can think of from political sense to decisiveness, from honesty to effectiveness. Even Bono of U2 has thrown up his hands and wondered aloud just what the hell is going on with the man after he reneged on a commitment to increase foreign aid.

Well, Bono, there is no shortage of people scratching their heads over commitments Martin has failed to fulfill. Just ask George Bush, who is rumoured to be naming armadillos "Paul" and siccing his dog on them for nighttime entertainment at the ranch.

Now, for those of you who think I'm being too hard on the man, that he's just an honest guy stuck in someone else's mess, consider that this is the guy who practically ripped the Liberal Party in two in order to force his way into the leadership chair. He was also the man in charge of finances during the time of AdScam, and if you think he didn't have an inkling of what was going on during his tenure as this country's financial Grand Pooh-bah, then perhaps I could interest you in some lakefront property just outside of Moosonee.

And having taken the helm in the bloodiest political coup in recent Canadian memory, he proceeded to give money away to the provinces with the negotiating skills of a three year old, and push one agenda after another that he would then fail to follow up. Take his vaunted "Responsibility to Protect." With people dieing faster than fleas on a drowning dog in Sudan, Canada has done nothing to either push the UN or intervene on its own, unless you consider a promise of sending 31 soldiers to have a look-see action.

On the national stage? Well, let's see...health care? Spent lots of money and gave doctors some extra golf ball money, but you shouldn't have to wait too much longer...here, have a magazine. Daycare? Well, maybe they're finally getting around to that, but maybe not, and isn't that Ken Dryden a nice guy? Great Hockey player, I hear. More money for provinces? Let's talk. Doing away with patronage? Well, they just appointed disgraced former Liberal MP Art Eggleton to the Senate. How's that?

Failure, after failure, after failure; we're learning that the Liberals of the nineties were a corrupt mess, but we already know that the Liberals we have now are a useless, incompetent, indecisive mess.

Well, for the sake of your party, for the sake of Canada, and for the sake of this scribe's thinning hair, please, Paul Martin, please, punch your ticket and go home. Unless hell develops a distinct layer of frost, your party will be well on its way to opposition status by June, and it will be time to start anew.

You've had your kick at the can, and I gotta tell ya, Paul, you've been a disappointment.

It's time to resign.