Stick this in your conch shell and blow it

Political Animal 65 Comments

In her installation speech yesterday, Liberal Party (Governor-General Division) CEO Michaelle Jean spoke admiringly of the �legendary hospitality and humour of people in the Atlantic provinces� Sorry to burst your bubble, Madam G-G, but, notwithstanding certain fawning reviews to the contrary, this Atlantic Canadian thinks your speech was a steaming pile of smug collectivist platitudes and cloying political correctness. Blech.

65 Replies to “Stick this in your conch shell and blow it”

  2. I wish she had delivered the speech Andrew thinks she did.
    “And that is how I am determined that the position I occupy as of today will be more than ever a place where citizens� words will be heard, where the values of respect, tolerance, and sharing that are so essential to me and to all Canadians, will prevail.”
    Couple more years of hectoring about tolerance and respect, I guess.

  4. Andrew Coyne AND Greg Weston seem to both have schoolboy crushes on our new “Chancellor”. WTF? Hints of liberal turd polisher extrodinaire, Kinsella crossing over to the dark side…WTF?
    Let’s see now…it’s been suggested that Coyne’s been “given a talking to” (threat of legal action?) by the Lib’$ for his once scathing commentary on federal corruption and hanky panky. Now his website is nothing more than virtual tumbleweeds blowing in the wind.
    Kinsella is simply in butt-covering mode as Judge Gomery spends the fall connecting the dots. Better play nicey-nice with those inbred crackers of the Conservative party should they form government and come a calling on former Chretien yes boys, eh Warren?
    As for Weston, all I can say is WTF? Wassup Greg? Does everyone, including you have his price? Horse head in your bed this morning? A big “X” on your front door?
    Good grief.

  5. “legendary hospitality and humour of people in the Atlantic provinces”
    I too gagged when I heard those words. Perhaps our legendary hospitality has escaped the American tourists that have been shunning our region for the past two years?
    Oh, and we are funny alright. We’re so funny that we accept unemployment stats triple that of our next door American neighbours.
    I agree with John Brown. The reaction of Canada’s exempt media is enough to make the most optimistic person hurl until it hurts.

  6. �The time of the two solitudes that for too long described the character of this country is past.�
    That’s moving forward amd recognizing Canada’s changing. Too many old white lawyers in Ottawa whose time is long past. If she was the leader of the CPC they might have a chance.

  8. The woman has a sand dollar for a talisman and mermaids to represent “the vital role played by women in advancing social justice.”
    Give me a break!!

  9. I would have to say the use of the term ‘siren song’ in his title is unfortunate. Is Canada going to be shipwrecked or just Andrew Coyne? I wouldn’t be offended by the hospitality reference of Atlantic Canadians. Us folks in West are so simple-like that we still do business deals with a hand shake. Gawwwwly.

  10. “legendary hospitality and humour of people in the Atlantic provinces”
    So Stompin’ Tom provided the after dinner entertainment at the inaugural ball? Did Paul Martin ask for Madam’s hand during the playing of “The Gumboot Clogger”?

  11. Just what we need on the Hill: another drama queen. And don’t know what has happened to Coyne – MIA as far as I can see. He’s good enough to do a Steyn and write for papers that actually count for something rather than joining the mediocre hacks in this country. Another salute to mediocrity: Woe Canada.

  12. Canadians simply don’t tell the truth nor do they want to hear it. We hate being lied to, but not nearly as much as we hate being told the truth.
    Natural emotions and reflexes such as , mistrust, discrimination, selfishness and hate are defaco illegal in this country, yet, these are the survival instincts we need to protect ourselves from out enemies and our politicians.
    Canada is not heaven, it just looks like it is, but it’s run by devils. And isnt’ that how it’s supposed to be? One big deception.
    Canada is will never be the melting pot that USA used to be … it’s too late and now we are all at risk. However, our directive is to simply BE NICE, while we navel gaze our way into oblivion.
    To quote Picard, “raise the shields number one”.
    We will need them.
    Welcome to the “Star Ship Subsidy” Madame Jean.
    Perhaps you can accompany Paul and boys when they hand the next billions to the indians, or to those happy little maritime gun registry workers. Yes Canada is a great place.

  13. M.John(Jean) was attepting to be ‘folksy’, all lieberals do that!! The cute, harmless, peons that line up for her ‘blessing’, oops she does not use the Bible – or is that a ‘convience thing’, sometimes ‘yes’ sometimes ‘no’? Anyway according to MSM the hicks in the Merrytimes and the Cldhoppers and Rednecks in the West will “embrace” this regal Person and we will fall on our knees in awe. When will the people of thids country wake up??

  15. ” smug collectivist platitudes and cloying political correctness”
    Damn I wished I’d said that 😉
    A very crystal clear capsulization of Mdme Jean and her cult thinking.
    Here we have a woman who is now the figure head of everything she has spent a lifetime resenting….Monarchy,status quo, A Canada outside the narrow confines of socialist francophonie cult…she sold it out for a big fat juicy patronage plumb….and to present a masquerade to the duped public she spits out these endless vapourous PC bromides….as if on a mission to save Canada with shallow symbolism and partisan utopian mythology.
    I agree Kate this is tough to take on a full stomach.

  17. “I agree Kate this is tough to take on a full stomach.”
    Thanks. But I’m not Kate.
    “endless vapourous PC bromides”
    And I wish I had said that.

  18. Was that really Coyne or a clone? Yikes. Any diabetic reading that … column, for lack of a better word … better take a double shot of insulin.
    Does she not know all the province names? what about the territories, did they get lumped into “the west” or was I in a sugar coma and miss it?
    The only points I’ll give her, at the moment, is that she wanted a private dinner at Rideau and was overruled by PMPM who wanted a big bash, so maybe she’ll go easier on the budget?

  20. “Was that really Coyne or a clone? Yikes. Any diabetic reading that … column, for lack of a better word … better take a double shot of insulin.”
    Coyne’s been neudered by the cartel…he was threatened and decided writing Lib dictated pablum beats the mean streets without a job. Frankly I wonder about anyone at the post…after Frum and Steyn left because of Asper wanting to make the Post into a small “L” dictaphone I though Coyne would too. But in all fairness these other 2 great conservative-libertarian writers had jobs to go to with publications outside the maple curtain. Guess it proves if you write for the Trudeaupian guard you spin the myths you’re told to. Harper nade the right call on the Post
    Thank God for the western journalist pool.

  21. Hey Andrew Coyne!! Would that nauseating gush-fest be forthcoming if Jean was 50 and weighed 300 lbs?? Methinks not.

  22. “Every Canadian woman, every Canadian man prizes that freedom and would defy anyone who tried to take it away.”
    I thought it was…
    “Liberty is taken, it is never given”
    What a difference a crown and a jet makes.
    Liberan$$$$$$ whores doling out the slop to the intellectual needy.
    $$$$$$lurp it up $$$$$uckers!!!

  23. Andrew and the boys have replaced their Farrah Fawcett posters with one of the new GG. All those superlatives being spilled for a blip on the radar screen of the history of this country. Hormones in overdrive, I think. Sadly, it doesn’t take much to bedazzle the boys of the MSM. The girls are worse. Ear plugs are the latest trend when Taber hits the screen.

  24. this deserves repeating, so it will remain forever etched in your mind (or on your computer screen as you do a full java spew)
    “Madam, I surrender. Let us forget past criticisms. Let us put aside old quarrels. Your speech has collapsed my defences. You are my Commander-in-Chief.”

  26. How many innocent people would the CPC have to murder in cold blood before Mme. Jean would be willing to lead them?

  27. I think if you read the speech carefully you can see a running thread of French republican ideology. Examples:
    “To open oneself to the entire world, which comes here inspired by the ideal of a society in which the rights of all citizens are equal.” (“Declaration of the Rights of Man”)
    “Every one of us rekindles in his own way the sense of belonging to this space that we all share, a space that contains the world.” (cf. “la France profonde”)
    “The narrow notion of �every person for himself� does not belong in today�s world, which demands that we learn to see beyond our wounds, beyond our differences for the good of all. Quite the contrary: we must eliminate the spectre of all the solitudes and promote solidarity among all the citizens who make up the Canada of today.” (all citizens owe a duty to the Republic, and a key role of the French education system was to make “Frenchmen” out of a population that in 1789 had little real sense of common national identity)
    “Along with my husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, I hope to rally our creative forces around those values that unite us all and that are universal in
    scope.” (cf. the deep French belief in the universality of their Revolution’s principles)
    “There is an observation by Montesquieu, a philosopher of the Enlightenment, that has a particular resonance for me and I would like to share it with you. It states that �The duty of the citizen becomes a crime if it makes him forget the duty of the man.�” (enough said)
    I see a considerable hand of M. Lafond in the speech.
    Mark
    Ottawa

  29. For you bonus round folks, she’s also alluding to Rousseau’s General Will. Fans of Trudeaupian notions of a human rights utopia contra Leo Strauss, will, of course, applaud and fawn unreservedly, which is, I assume, where Monsieur Coyne et al are coming from down in Eastern Canadastan.
    Good thing she’s not in charge of the military or I’d be worried.

  30. I justy loved the way she would pause and make sure she had the proper facial expression to emote the statements in the speech. The fact that she seemed toe be reading word for word off the page tells me she didn’t write this collection of over hyped cliches. If I’m not mistaken, the speech had a very, very, very, similar type of overused, overhyped, overextended. over the top expressions without really saying anything of substance, I’ve heard somewhere else.

  32. Thank you for agreeing to disagree with this astonishing media consensus about how great the speech was. I thought it tedious and platitudinous, containing neither soaring rhetoric nor any of the stunning insights that Coyne and Lowell Green (on CFRA radio in Ottawa this morning) were gushing about. Green enaged in all sorts of hyperbole, calling it a “staunchly conservative” speech. Having just re-read it, I can only conclude most of these folks have gone completely off their onion.

  33. Re: Coyne
    I remember him ripping John Kerry a new one over his platitudinous rhetoric during the Kerry/Bush ’04 election and comparing it to rhetoric of the past. I hope that he’s going to come clean that his column is meant as some type of sendup. In this country, though, where defection is a sign of affection, nothing surprises me anymore.

  34. Cheer up folks.
    If things get too grim I’ll lob another one into Steyn’s mailbox for you all to guffaw over. Always happy to supply a little lunchtime gruel and alms for the peasantry here in the Federal Republic of Bananada.

  36. “Liberty is taken, it is never given”
    Wrong. You give it away. When you follow a party line, or a mob, or allow I.D. cards, or vote or let someone else be scapegoated. When you weaken your army.
    You teach by what you accept.

  37. “”Madam, I surrender (to the need for a paycheque and/or my hormones). Let us forget past criticisms (because I can’t afford another lawsuit). Let us put aside old quarrels (does this mean that he likes PMPM now, too?). Your speech has collapsed my defences (should read “collapsed my BS detector”). You are my Commander-in-Chief (and I am but a bootlicking twit).”
    may he rest in peace.

  38. Since you’re all moaning about the betrayal of the “MSM”… I might as well do my duty and add that even the editorialists at the Sun Chain of papers have decided that Jean isnt that bad.
    —
    She was off to a good start yesterday with her call to break down the “two solitudes” of French and English Canada.
    Like most Canadians, we take her at her word that she is today loyal to Canada.
    —
    So.. it appears that you folks only have the extreme seperatists as your allies decrying Jean’s appointment – people whose viewpoint not even the Bloc would endorse. (Did I mention Stephen Harper wished her well on her tenure?)
    Congratulations on politically marginalizing yourself.

  41. I pick good guest bloggers, eh?
    Checking in briefly from while I sip a late night beer in La Crosse, Wisconsin – tomorrow, Monroe, Michigan…
    What can I say? It’s the exotic nature and the glamour of dog show venues is what keeps us coming back…

  43. “Liberty is taken, it is never given”
    Congratulations on politically marginalizing yourself
    Oh hey Kate great guest blogging, thanks a ton!
    Good Luck!

  44. “Congratulations on politically marginalizing yourself.”
    Politics? The Governor-General isn’t a politician is she? Or is she?
    When the centre of the apple is rotten, the outer edges start to look sweeter.

  45. Poor Mme. Jean. She has the bad timing to have have been appointed by a Liberal government, which, of course, is a license to dismiss and revile her. Had this been an appointment by a Conservative government, it would have been hailed as a bold, creative, visionary expression of Canada’s new etc.
    It was a given that the readers of SDA would hate whatever Mme. Jean had to say on inauguration day. I wonder how many voiced precisely the same contempt for the departing GG upon her appointment?

  47. “Had this been an appointment by a Conservative government, it would have been hailed as a bold, creative, visionary expression of Canada’s new etc.”
    Not by me.

  48. “Had this been an appointment by a Conservative government, it would have been hailed as a bold, creative, visionary expression of Canada’s new etc.”
    Oh, most certainly. In the same way that we Canadians pine for the Kenneth Clarke British Tory leadership that Mark Steyn is always waxing Brittanic about.
    We could really use a Brian Mulroney expletive deleted tape recording from Peter C. Newman right about now.

  50. King’s Advisor: [to Princess] Sanguinarious homo indomitus est, et se me dite cum mendagio.
    [He is a murderous savage, and he is telling lies]
    William Wallace: Ego nunco pronunciari mendagio! Sed ego sum homo indomitus.
    [I never lie! But I am a savage]
    William Wallace: [to Princess] Ou en fran�ais, si vous pr�f�rez?
    [Or in French, if you prefer?]

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