The recent talk about the Liberal-NDP “merger” is based mainly on the fact that the Liberal Party has gone through a series of unfortunate and ineffective leaders in the past six years, and none of them have lived up to their pay grade. Paul Martin dithered. Stephane Dion withered. And Michael Ignatieff hasn’t delivered.

After two frustrating electoral losses, the last one sending the Liberal Party to a low of just 77 seats, you can almost smell the desperation. Michael Ignatieff is officially less popular than Typhus, and only the Liberal brand seems to keep the party afloat in the polls.

How else would one explain the rumours that former prime minister Jean Chrétien is doing some serious behind-the-scenes work promoting the idea of a power-sharing merge with the NDP? As the Hill Times put it:

One Liberal insider said that Mr. Chrétien, who won three successive majority governments partly due to the fact that the right was divided, doesn’t think Mr. Ignatieff has the political chops to defeat the Tories.

“[Chrétien] doesn’t see [Ignatieff] being able to pull this off and put it together. The guy is in many people’s opinion politically brain-dead,” said the source.

It’s a fair observation. Andrew Coyne even intimated that this could signal the death of the Liberal Party.

Does it sound insulting to call Mr.Ignatieff “brain-dead”? To refer to his unofficial moniker of “iffy”, for his prolific flip-flops and indecision? Would that mean that I’m ignoring his obvious academic and intellectual credentials?

Of course not. It’s well-established that the man is a successful academic, writer, historian, professor, and was even designated by Great Britain’s Prospect magazine as a “public intellectual.” Nobody would think to argue these points or denigrate his life’s accomplishments.

But intellect in one area does not necessarily lend itself to intelligence in all areas of life. And I think we can safely say that the former Harvard Professor is most certainly not a very intelligent politician.

The late Bobby Fischer, former World Chess Champion and child prodigy, is widely considered one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. His ruthless analytical skills on a chess board combined with an almost poetic imagination that continues to defy some of the greatest computer programs that exist today, has him regarded as perhaps one of the best brains to sit before a chess board. Simply put, Fischer’s genius on 64 squares was as irrefutable as Einstein in the field of science.

But Bobby Fischer erred in calculating that his genius extended beyond the chess board, into all aspects and areas of life, which gave him an arrogant, abrasive personality. After retiring from chess in 1972 on top of the world — except for a brief resurrection in 1992 which only further exacerbated his apparent sickness of the mind — Bobby Fischer became reclusive, paranoid, and focused on conspiracy theories.

Despite being Jewish himself, he developed a hatred for Jews, accusing them of controlling the world and fabricating the holocaust. After 9/11, he went on radio condemning the United States, and praising the terrorists for their good work. It was a moment that the world of chess collectively gasped to see a former champion regarded as a genius fall so far from grace.

Though Fischer never played chess publicly after 1992, many close friends said that he continued to possess the analytical skills and imagination that made him a terror on the chess board. So while it would seem that Fischer had gone mad, he had lost none of his innate genius. Unfortunately for the world, that genius was limited almost solely to chess.

Perhaps in a similar way Michael Ignatieff has found himself attempting to do something widely outside of his element, and is coming up short. His assumption that his intellect could transcend politics may be one rooted in over-confidence nurtured by his success in academia. It’s a miscalculated error that has cost the Liberal Party dearly.