Big deal, you say. People call in "sick" from work all the time. Yes, but after you've faked appendicitis, what do you do then? It doesn't just clear up on its own. Sooner or later, you're bound to be exposed as a liar. Nothing to do but come clean, and hope for mercy. Or, if you're Jean Chretien, you go through with the operation.

He will do whatever it takes, in other words. He will go to any extremes. Other people fake illnesses to get what they want. He allows parts of his body to be cut out of him.

That is by way of prologue. Now flash forward to the events of the past month. Around the end of November, the Prime Minister let it be known through the usual sources that he was preparing legislation to ban corporate and union donations to political parties. Days later, however, the idea was shelved, in the face of the unyielding hostility of at least half the Liberal caucus, not to mention the party president. The Prime Minister appeared to have been routed.

Just before Christmas, however, we were informed that Mr. Chretien was again preparing campaign finance legislation, that he had compromised not a whit from the original plan, that the bill was to be introduced early in the new year, and that if the bill died, presumably for lack of caucus support, he would call a snap election.

There was nothing accidental in this. The source for the story, though described merely as "a government official," would not have been speaking without the Prime Minister's authority. And just so there was no mistake, the same message was delivered to reporters at least two more times.

On Dec. 28, we learned through "a senior official" that Mr. Chretien was "in a fighting mood," that he was prepared to "stare down whoever he has to" and "do whatever he needs to" -- including calling a snap election. On Dec. 30, the National Post reported that Mr. Chretien had threatened earlier in the month to call an election over the Kyoto accord, which had also aroused much opposition among caucus members, and to refuse to sign the nomination papers of those who defied him. Crucially, according to "a senior Liberal source," the plan had the support of Aline Chretien.

It's a bluff, right? It has to be. An election? After the year he's had?

With the party divided, the caucus in revolt, and the press filled with scandals?

Well, maybe. But it's an odd time to bluff, when your first bluff has already been called. What kind of poker player bets you double or nothing after he's been found holding nothing but a pair of twos? Yet having been humiliated once over campaign finance reform, Mr.

Chretien now proposes to bring back the same bill. Moreover, having allowed his minions to threaten a snap election -- explicitly, publicly, and on at least three occasions -- he can hardly back down now.

Dissolution is the ICBM in a prime minister's political arsenal, for use when all else is lost. You don't wheel it out of its silo unless you're prepared to deploy it.

On the other hand, I can't see how the caucus can back down, either. It isn't only a matter of being shown up for the nervous nellies they are, unwilling to put their seats on the line in the crunch. It isn't even about being cut off from all that corporate money, not least since Mr.

Chretien proposes to replace it with public funds -- a subject for another day. But one part of the bill would require MPs to divulge the sources of contributions to their personal re-election campaigns, the infamous slush funds many MPs maintain between elections. I asked a Liberal I know how likely it was that they would agree to this. To say that he laughed would be incorrect. He exploded.

It is a classic zero-sum game. If Mr. Chretien wins, he will have his way with the caucus until the day he chooses to retire. If the caucus wins, he is finished, his one remaining weapon revealed to be nothing but a wad of damp toilet paper. Since neither side can back down, the odds of a spring election would seem to have suddenly increased. I can see how Mr. Chretien would be willing to chance it, at any rate. If he loses, well, he was going to retire anyway. If we wins -- still the betting proposition -- he stays as long as he likes. Either way, Paul Martin is screwed.

I realize I am one of perhaps five or six people who take any of this seriously. But I am haunted by Mr. Chretien's missing appendix.

Threatening an election is what other people do, like faking an illness.

Calling one is having the operation.