“The question the people around Paul Martin would like you to ask yourself, in the wake of the Gomery report," Andrew Coyne wrote earlier this week, "is this: 'Are there two Liberal parties, or one?'"

Clearly, Coyne falls into the "one-party" camp. A scandal-plagued company that brought in a new CEO, he argued, would not be absolved of sins committed before that CEO got there. By his logic, Martin's Liberals can't dodge responsibility for Adscam just because there's a new guy at the top - and if they try, it's just another sign that the Grits still operate, or try to, in a "culture of impunity."

If the Liberals had merely changed the CEO, Coyne's analogy would hold up. But the truth is that they changed personnel in such a wholesale manner that this really isn't the same company any more.

Anybody who was around the Liberals in the mid-to-late 1990s knows there were already two different parties. There was the Chretien wing, which included the majority of ministers and a cadre of officials and advisors, and effectively controlled government. And there was the Martin wing, which owned most backbench MPs and riding associations, and controlled most of the party apparatus.

Martin was not powerless when it came to government - he was given a lot of leeway in finance. But on many other matters, especially when it came to Quebec, he was shut out.

This changing of the guard had little to do with improving ethical standards; it was really about a politician who'd been waging a long, bloody leadership battle salting the earth. But there is no denying that, aside from the party name, this is not the same government that perpetrated Adscam.

On the evidence of this week's poll showing a virtual dead heat between the Liberals and Conservatives, Canadians might not believe that. Perhaps they've deduced that merely not being part of the problem is not good enough - that, as finance minister, Martin should have been proactive in combating or exposing corruption. It may be, too, that Justice John Gomery's efforts to clear the PM's name backfired - his unnecessary pronouncement that Martin had been "exonerated" raising more eyebrows than it lowered.

Still, if the Martinites deserve our hostility, it's not so much for the sponsorship scandal - it's because, while the new Liberal party may be more ethically sound than the old one, it's actually provided an inferior government otherwise.

That's saying something. But quite apart from the Adscam fallout, the Martinites have struggled mightily in office - easily earning the "dithering" tag as they've failed to live up to the lofty expectations they once set. And a big part of the reason has been the promotion of underwhelming talents rather than allowing overlap from the Chretien era.

Even in a Cabinet derided for its mediocrity, Chretien at least had a few strong ministers capable of advancing critical priorities. The same can rarely be said for their replacements.

The most popular example is the demotion of federalist crusader Stephane Dion from Intergovernmental Affairs, correctly identified in a scathing Montreal Gazette editorial last weekend as the work of a "jealous and wary" prime minister. With national unity again on the radar, the Martinites have effectively ceded the floor to Quebec nationalists - Dion's replacement, Lucienne Robillard, all but invisible, and Quebec lieutenant Jean Lapierre barely even a federalist.

It's the same in other ministries - notably Indian Affairs, where the reform-minded Robert Nault has been ousted in favour of a befuddled Andy Scott. And the same goes for many political staffers.

The answer to Coyne's question is that there are indeed two Liberal parties. It just so happens that neither one deserves to be re-elected.