Help me out, folks. The Liberals are about to commit a major folly, but no one, particularly Liberals, is saying anything about it.

Since election day, we’ve been treated to various explanations in newspapers by Liberal Party insiders as to what the party must do to rebuild after the May 2 debacle. Some of the advice was really good, particularly that provided by lifelong Liberals who also admitted that the party has been on a downward decline for years and that, lo and behold, it’s all the Liberals’ own fault – and not the fault of the NDP for having to audacity to surge at the most inopportune of times, and not the fault of the Conservatives for placing silly attack ads in the middle of Dancing With The Stars. (Although this prompts the question as to which is sillier – the Tory attack ads, or people who actually watch that show. Well, you be the judge.)

What was especially astounding was their willingness to do it right this time, that is, to take the time necessary to reform the Liberal Party and not to rush into new platforms or leadership races without really changing the party from the ground up first.

But all those positive suggestions have been brought to nought by the news that former prime minister Jean Chrétien, and one of the main reasons why Liberals have been unable to connect with voters, has put his oar in, phoned up virtually all remaining Liberal MPs and strongly “suggested” to them that Bob Rae should be made interim party leader for two years.

Now, Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Rae have been close for a very long time. What one favours, the other one supports, including a potential merger of the Liberal and NDP parties. It’s no surprise that Mr. Chrétien has decided to support Mr. Rae, for the latter is all that remains of the old Chrétien fan club.

But the party will lose even more popular support for allowing the old dinosaur to become involved again – and, no doubt, opening up old wounds and aggravating long-time factions. The feud between then-prime minister Mr. Chrétien and his then-finance minister Paul Martin is the stuff of legends, and credited as one of the primary contributing factors to the Liberal Party’s demise (that’s right, the Big Red Machine is dead). If the Chrétienites are allowed to call the shots and install their own favourite candidate as interim leader, it won’t be long before some Martinites rear their heads and start the feud all over again.

It won’t do much for the rebuilding effort either when the Old Guard starts pulling strings again. This goes against everything that more reasonable Liberals have been writing about since the morning after the election.

Mr. Chrétien’s involvement won’t just put off many inside the party, but will also drive even more voters away from the Liberal Party. Seeing Mr. Chrétien’s face, or being reminded of him and his past filled with corruption and billions of tax dollars misappropriated, will be more than enough to ensure that  the rump caucus will lose official party status after the 2015 election.

Mr. Rae, too, comes with baggage from the time he was Ontario’s NDP premier. Rightly or wrongly, Ontarians hate the man with the same passion that Albertans experience at the thought of digging up the body of former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau and killing him again and again. It’s easy to tell them to get over it, but as the example of Alberta shows as well, some grudges actually become worse and harder to shed as time goes by.

If the Liberals are serious about starting from scratch, they must tell Mr. Chrétien to stay home, to enjoy his retirement and, above all, to butt out. This isn’t his battle anymore.