Even more so than usual, it's been open season on Jack Layton in this newspaper.

"If there's going to be a Grinch who stole Christmas from Parliament Hill so we can spend about $300-million to elect another minority government, there's a certain symmetry to the dirty job falling on NDP leader Jack Layton's sagging shoulders," Don Martin wrote this week. Terence Corcoran has pronounced that "when God invented the concept of grandstanding, he had Jack Layton in mind." Bruce Garvey has assessed that "contrary to what his posturing suggests, Mr. Layton is hardly a noble parliamentarian seeking to make a minority government work." And naturally, letter writers have gotten in on the act as well -- among them former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford, who wants more of us "decrying the reprehensible conduct of Mr. Layton and the NDP, who think that trading off ethics and honesty in government is defensible."

It's to be expected that a socialist leader is going to take his licks in a conservative newspaper. And at times, Mr. Layton has certainly earned them -- especially late last week, when he was clearly milking his time in the spotlight as he deliberated over whether to continue propping up Paul Martin's Liberals. But the invective was being hurled in his direction long before then, and not just in the Post. Ever since last April, when he agreed to have his party vote with the Liberals in Parliament in return for $4.5-billion spent on NDP priorities, he's been painted as a self-interested opportunist cynically surrendering his principles.

Of course Mr. Layton is being opportunistic -- that's what politicians do. But if they're not being disingenuous, those who've claimed that he's doing his party a disservice have an extremely poor grip on where the NDP stands.

Purely from the perspective of public opinion, Mr. Layton's attempts to leverage the Liberals' precarious situation to his advantage -- first with last spring's spending deal, and more recently with his attempts to promote New Democrat medicare policies -- may backfire. Among voters simply looking for an alternative to the Liberals, Mr. Layton's willingness to help them out makes the NDP a less attractive place to park their votes. But if you're among the 10-15% of Canadians belonging to his party's support base -- and really, that's whom he answers to -- there is every reason to embrace his strategy with open arms.

In theory, everyone joins a political party hoping it will eventually come to power. But in practice, there's as much chance of a New Democrat taking up residence at 24 Sussex as there is of the party winning a seat in Red Deer. And however batty you may think the NDP is when it comes to economic policy, most of its members aren't so delusional that they've convinced themselves they're on the brink of government.

As a result, being a New Democrat is normally an enormously frustrating calling. They believe fervently in their policies, but there's very little they can do to advance them so long as another party holds majority power -- as is almost always the case. So for the realists among them, the best hope is that they'll somehow wind up holding the balance of power and be able to influence policy that way.

That didn't quite happen this time. But the way Parliament breaks down right now, it's close enough. So New Democrats and their supporters would have ample reason to be furious if Mr. Layton had quickly surrendered that opportunity in order to join the stampede rushing toward another election.

Even if it wins, say, 40 seats the next time Canadians go to the polls -- an extremely optimistic projection -- the NDP won't have much more chance to wield influence than it does today. And it could easily wind up in a situation in which a Liberal government no longer needs its help, or a Conservative government refuses it. So why on earth would Mr. Layton look a gift horse in the mouth?

His critics contend that the entire country shouldn't be held hostage by a party that received 16% of the vote last election. But that's the parliamentary system -- the same one that sometimes gives us all-powerful majorities with less than 40% support. Election after election, the NDP is given a disproportionately small amount of power -- i.e., none -- relative to its share of the popular vote. This time, it got too much. That's life.

Mr. Layton has merely been trying to advance his party's longstanding policy goals. Good for him.