Today in Rae

Today marked the return of Parliament with the election of the new Speaker this afternoon. Life in the Harper majority era is formally beginning. Just want to note a few observations from the past 24 hours here in terms of Rae's debut as interim leader. First, a few tweets from observers this afternoon:

This quote which strikes the right note of humility given certain early polls and the long road ahead:

"It is an honour to sit in the House of Commons and whether you sit in the front row or the back row ... it doesn't matter. It's a great honour to serve here and we'll serve in the position to which we've been put by the people of Canada. We've been put in third place, we accept that," he said.

And this:

Moments after Baird spoke with reporters in the halls of Parliament, interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae casually dropped Resolution 242 into his own response to questions about Harper's G8 stance on the Middle East.

Told that Canada's current foreign minister was unfamiliar with the resolution, Rae expressed surprise.

"It is not only a number," Rae said, before rattling off the history of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

"Go back to President Nixon, Mr. Kissinger, all that, all the efforts, the Madrid process, the Oslo process, all the events, the Annapolis process, more recently the effort that President Obama began. All these efforts since what, 40 years, are based on 242."

Rae declined to twist the knife, however, simply saying the new minister "has things to learn."

"We accept that nobody is perfect. I'm not."

Early days but not a bad start at all.