There is nothing more hilarious than the media defending itself against Harper’s charge that they are biased against his party. In its editorial opposite Simpson’s column, the Globe and Mail pleads (again behind subscriber wall) that:
This kind of petulance might be excusable if there were any evidence that the media really were out to get him. In fact, he has pretty good press. A recent poll gave him an 18-point lead over the Liberals, hardly evidence of a media conspiracy.
If I understand their argument, the fact that the Conservatives are now ahead in the polls proves that the media are not biased. Such hubris. But then, does that mean when the Conservatives were behind in the polls (i.e., for most of the previous decade) it was because the media was against them? You can’t have it both ways.
There’s that “p” word again. Well, I suppose something had to fill the vacuum created when the word “scary” was retired from the media lexicon.
Over at BBG, Andrew introduces Godwin’s Law, Canadian Variant;
As a online discussion about Canadian politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the United States of America or a member of the Republican party approaches one.
Inspired by this fabulous post by Stephen Taylor. As a bonus, it has all the hallmarks of a first-rate drinking game!
(Why, oh why, do the yack artists continue to trot out tired political cliches like Jim Travers and Jane Taber when there’s commentary like Taylor’s at their fingertips?)
More from Lorrie Goldstein;
If the PPG cares so much about this issue now as an infringement on press
freedom, why didn’t it object just as publicly and loudly when the precedent was established by Martin and his staff in the 2004 and 2006 federal election campaigns?
Never mind Harper’s allegations that the PPG are closet liberals. Surely the more relevant point is that the PPG has undercut its own credibility in this confrontation – and lent credence to Harper’s charge that a Liberal PM would not be subjected to the same attack as he has been because … well … because that appears to be what happened.
Obviously the punditry and the PPG haven’t heard the first rule that comes to bear when you find yourself in a hole…stop digging!
Unless of course it was an american-style hole in which case you would…dig deeper and deeper ending up to your knees in water and finding the well filling up fast. Come to think of it…keep digging!
Daniel
Heck even Jane had to try and reel in Craig Oliver on Question Period last Sunday when Craig suggested that Harper’s lead in te polls would evaporate as soon as the Grits have a new leader and the media writes noting but flattering stories about a liberal renascence.
“not that we do that, right Craig, we just report the news”
Perfect, Kate. Their argument is contradictory. They are saying that Since Harper has risen in the polls (Conclusion), this means that there is no media hostility towards him. And, this conclusion has to also mean that when he was low in the polls, there was media hostility to him.
And wait what happens when the Liberals do crown a new leader; the media will fall all over im.
Don’t do what George Bush does!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
http://jessegritter.blogspot.com/
Yeah, by MSM calculations, Kate, Jane/John Q Public have nothing to do with PMSH’s popularity in the polls, only the MSM’s having no obvious anti-CPC bias. Doesn’t this thinking just prove their massive narcissism and how out of touch with reality they are? I would suggest that a backlash towards the media has a lot to do with the fact that a whole lotta Canadians are cheering Harper and his team on. But the MSM could never entertain such an idea: It would be too wounding and traumatic to their very sensitive, over-sized psyches.
Good on Jim Flaherty for nixing protective tariffs for Canadian industry and lowering taxes on small businesses and supporting education and skilled trades initiatives instead. Our productivity compared to other countries has been steadily decreasing, tanking actually, thanks to the “I’m Canadian, I’m special, I’m entitled” mentality under the Libs, so this pull up your socks, roll up your sleeves, and grease your elbows approach is refreshing, indeed. ‘Nothing like a little fire under you to get the creative juices flowing!
I would check out yesterdays globe for William Thorsell’s column. A subtle dig at the current crop of journalists and a subtle dig, I think at the current Globe editor.
Essentially saying why dont you dig deeper?
Couldnt agree more. Reporters, particularly TV reporters are lazy and do not dig.
As for the Globe’s editorial today….ho humm….read Spectors column…geez no problems from the BC provincial PPG…they have been choosing questioners there for 20 years it seems.
Amounts to nothing.
The most intruiging part of Spectors column is that Sh feels he lost control of the media message in the last week. What he doesnt say is how or why it was lost.
I know they were talking about abortion. If I remeber correctly it came from a non comment SH made in an interview.
I’d combine the journalism laziness and ever deteriorating Globe and Mail to note the provincialism of the Canadian press. Lets face it, with nothing to say and after being rewarded for mediocrity all of their working lives, where else are they going to work? Honestly, when Lord Black started the NP, he snapped most of the competent journalists in the country but still didn’t have enough! So they toil away in the wading pool with the nerve to brandish anti-american comments either plainly or artlessly despite no knowledge of the systems and politics of America. Now I am not going to say that American journalism is much better but with a much larger pool to draw from and “just a few” more colleges to educate them, the US MSM can round up so good ones, and sometimes they happen to be Canadian! The G&M is currently led by an individual who couldn’t cut it anywhere else. I maintain that, with a few exceptions, the best journalism in Canada comes from the sportswriters. At least they write with passion and knowledge [except most of those who cover the Leafs!]
Interesting logic.
The fact that the press is all-out gunning for Harper… and he is climbing in the polls… merely indicates that the game is over for the Liberal press.
They are screaming like stuck pigs, and no one is listening. Their days of steering opinion are done.
At this point, they might as well deny the bias. Sounds better than admitting irrelevance.
Yesterday afternoon, Mike Puffy was on Adler’s radio show and denied the Librano bias. I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking that it was akin to Hitler denying the existence of the Nazi Party. What a joke.
Or even better, someone should write a book called, “The Librano Code”. … a novel about the press denying that it’s part of the Liberal blood line.
Test Case for MSM:
This will be a test case for the reporting skills(sic) of the MSM. How will the owners/publishers line up/down on this hearing?
Watch the MSM on this hearing; t’will be smothered, IMO. Unless… Will there be another “Gomery” inquiry/report?
Scanning news so far has not yet turned up another report.
This action by the judge is unlike anything this non-native resident has seen.
How will MSM cover/up this?
First question: Is there evidence of malfeasance* in the Dept. of the Attorney-General of Ontario?
Who is Justice David Marshall?
Judge Looks for Answers in Caledonia Standoff
Josh Pringle
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
An Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered the OPP, Ontario Attorney General, First Nations leaders and developers to a special court session on Thursday.
Justice David Marshall wants to know why his order to remove barricades near a housing development in Caledonia haven’t been enforced.
Police raided the subdivision on April 20th and briefly removed 16 occupiers. cfra.com
*Misconduct or wrongdoing, especially by a public official
“As they say in the media business, you can’t buy advertising like that.”
Are there any parallels/parallaxes to Media vs. Harper? Harper vs. Media?
Not bad for a “dead man walking” …..
Author: “walking”
http://www.voy.com/178771/199.html
Michael Smyth, The Vancouver Province
Sunday, May 28, 2006
the press is just PO’ed that after spouting about a hidden agenda for so long that when the curtain was pulled back all PMSH has offered was “peace, order and good governmnent” the old tennants of Canada pre-PMPET.
Greg Who’s spiel.
Word #11 in his “article”: “American”
…. #25: “U.S.”
…. #39: “Yanks”
All this in his first paragraph!
Omitted: “bfghthfs”.
New species of mutant/virus logical fallacy discovered:”Ad americanum canadiensis westonisis.”
Related to BDS, aka Mad Canadian Journalist Dis-Ease; a variant of JulieVanDusen bacillium. …
A case of border insecurity
While the Canadian government is trying everything to convince the American administration to put off new security measures requiring a passport to enter the U.S., our nation’s No. 2 spymaster has provided a rather compelling reason for the Yanks to man the barricades, preferably yesterday.
cnews
Okay. The (anti-CPC) MSM is irrelevant. We can stop raving about their bias. Deal?
The fact that Duffy is denying a Liberal bias means that reports that people are asserting that there IS a media bias, are getting through to him.
maz2 – thanks so much for the new viruses. They are great!
I just can’t get over that quote:
“This kind of petulance might be excusable if there were any evidence that the media really were out to get him. In fact, he has pretty good press. A recent poll gave him an 18-point lead over the Liberals, hardly evidence of a media conspiracy.”
If you needed any more proof that the press is full of Liberals, look no further than that last sentence.
Talk about arrogance. Only a Liberal would make a statement like that.
So, Harper owes his lead to the fact that the press isn’t biased against him ??? Well then, I guess Harper should get down on all fours and kiss the press’ feet because they’ve cut him some slack and spared his sorry arse.
Give me strength. These people have done their best to take him out. And they’ve failed miserably. And now they’re spinning their own irrelevance into being goodwill on their part. What a joke.
If the arrogance wasn’t the kicker that they’re all Liberals, then spewing effed up logic like that, thinking that the public will swallow it, is the dead giveaway.
May 30, 2006
Media double standard
Where was the outrage over Martin’s press policy?
By Lorrie Goldstein
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2006/05/30/1605453.html
My own view is that both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Parliamentary Press Gallery (PPG) have been behaving like a couple of horse’s butts in their ongoing confrontation.
But since the PPG is insisting Harper is entirely wrong and it is entirely right in the many news reports and media panels devoted to this issue by various PPG members, I do have some questions about the credibility of the PPG’s position.
This ongoing war between the PPG and Harper over access to the new Conservative government re-ignited last week when Harper gave a television interview in which he accused the PPG of being biased against the Conservatives, adding a Liberal prime minister would never face this kind of opposition from the PPG. Harper’s comments were made in the aftermath of a recent walk out staged by PPG members during a news conference with the PM on Parliament Hill.
The PPG said this walkout was to protest Harper’s insistence that his own staff will choose who in the PPG gets to question Harper and the order in which they will do so, as opposed to past practice where a member of the PPG made these decisions.
The PPG argues Harper’s format will limit the ability of its members to aggressively question him, since his aides might deliberately ignore certain reporters.
But if this is the PPG’s most pressing concern about Harper’s relations with the media, why didn’t it just as strenuously object when former prime minister Paul Martin instituted precisely the same format for taking questions from the media during the last two federal election campaigns?
As Maclean’s Ottawa columnist Paul Wells wrote on his political blog (weblogs.macleans.ca/paulwells) on March 28:
“The biggest problem with our complaints that it’s the PM’s staff, not our fellow journalists, deciding who gets to ask questions is that that’s not new. Paul Martin innovated, in this matter, during the 2004 campaign when he answered only reporters his paid, partisan press aide, Melanie Gruer, acknowledged during daily news conferences. This practice continued for the duration of the 2006 campaign.
“I, for one, was pretty damned surprised to learn, in the second week of the 2004 campaign, that we were letting a Liberal decide who got to put questions to a Liberal prime minister. And during the entire 2004 campaign I didn’t get to put a single question to Martin in any formal news conference. (Grand total for 2006: one question, plus one follow-up.)
“But for the life of me I couldn’t get any of my travelling colleagues to show an ounce of concern about the practice. It sucked then and it sucks now, but it is a bit rich for everyone to start complaining only now.” Indeed.
Here’s David Akin, a parliamentary correspondent for CTV National News, commenting on the same issue in his political blog (davidakin.blogware.com) on May 18.
“During the last election campaign, incidentally, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s communications staff kept a list of reporters who wanted to ask questions and then they would call out a reporter from that list — just like the current PM is doing. During the week I was with him, covering Martin for CTV News, I got all of two questions …”
If the PPG cares so much about this issue now as an infringement on press freedom, why didn’t it object just as publicly and loudly when the precedent was established by Martin and his staff in the 2004 and 2006 federal election campaigns?
Never mind Harper’s allegations that the PPG are closet liberals. Surely the more relevant point is that the PPG has undercut its own credibility in this confrontation — and lent credence to Harper’s charge that a Liberal PM would not be subjected to the same attack as he has been because … well … because that appears to be what happened.
lorrie.goldstein@tor.sunpub.com
One can just watch these so called reporters and you can see it in their demure that PMSH has gotten under their skin. The press is acting like a spoiled child and as my grand daughter says: Its time for a time out! Harper’s lead is because the people of this country are actually enjoying having a PM that is getting work done. (unlike dithers)
O/T Don’t mess with the judge
May 30th, 2006 by Shere Khan at Dust My Broom.
This is in referrence to Caledonia, very interesting……..
Harper has looked at himself and decided that being a soft-spoken accountant is not critical mass enough for media attention. My politices are not high on the excitability scale either.
A clear and present danger is to ignored, especially with all the press the Lieberals are getting over their immanent face lift. There are more people looking to be Lieberal leaders than there are people with permission to talk in my cabinet. What to do? How do I get print?
Ah, The Paris Hilton Media Rule Book has the answer.
The only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity. So how do I get publicity? I don’t do videos. Oh yeah, ad americanum Republicanum bullycanum. Brilliant! Pick a fight with the media! Accuse them of being anti-Harper, anti-conservative, it doesn’t matter, just paste them as anti. Nobody likes the media anyway so this will be a slam dunk. Then the media will become totally focused on me! They will watch me for signs of acceptance, rejection, playing favourites, coolness, aloofness, warmth, the list is endless and I, Stephen “sleepy” Harper will be riveting to all media all the time. Genius.
Maz: Your just too darn quick! Love it!
You’re right Kate. It would make for a good drinking game. One in which all the contestants were loaded to the gills. That way all this conservative nonsense could be palpable and made out to be what it really is…laughable.
If Harper can’t gain the respect of approximately 50 people of the national press gallery how does he ever expect to lead a country of 25 million.
This childish behaviour of his will work against him bigtime in the future. How could anybody vote for a person who can’t control a small group of butt-licking scribes. It could of been so easy, throw a cocktail party for them then make the rounds talking to each of them individually being a little friendly…end of problem.
As far as Stephen Taylor goes, he doesn’t even put the pun in pundit. It’s not ad americanum it’s pro canadaium. Translation, it’s not so much anti American as it is pro Canadian. Conclusion, true Canadians want to seek their own identity and destiny.
I’m quite happy that Harper will not kowtow to the press gallery.
No reason at all why he should.
“It’s not ad americanum it’s pro canadaium. Translation, it’s not so much anti American as it is pro Canadian. Conclusion, true Canadians want to seek their own identity and destiny.”
With due respect, Bull Feathers… “not so much…” do you even realize that you’re just confirming the inability of the typical Canadian leftist to strike a “pro-Canadium” (?) stance without the corresponding “anti-American” swipe?
I suspect most Americans who have spent enough time in Canada come to recognize that “American-style” is just as much a Dipper curse as the Chinese “May you live in interesting times.”
There’s another good reason for Harper to insist on getting his way with the Parliamentary Press Gallery: It gives him a bullet-proof excuse for travelling around the country, making announcements, getting his message out in the regions. Essentially, he will be campaigning, using his bully pulpit as the Prime Minister, using the Challenger Jet, maybe taking Ministers along with him. All on the taxpayer’s dime, saving the Conservative Party money for other uses. Much the same as Martin used to do, but much more crudely and blatantly, and with nary a complaint from the media. Will the media pick up on this hidden advantage to Harper in freezing out the PPG ? Would they even dare complain about Harper’s “abuse” of his position, mixing governance with politicking ?
The media loves to play gotcha regardless of the topic. Too bad for the press that they seem to have forgotten past columns, practices etc. The fact that other PMs have restricted access, picked questioners, ignored certain journalists etc, and they don’t like the results of cdns finally waking up to their bias. They can’t accept that we the people will get the truth out. If they don’t write it, it can’t be true. This spat will have an effect on the next election. The more they try to bash Harper the more we will say, THEIR BIAS IS SHOWING. It worked for him when he announced the liberals would run a negative campaign, and every ad proved it. I think it is time to replace the PPG and send in new reporters. How long will they have a job if they refuse to do the job. Publishers will have to make a choice, pay non preformers or change editorial policy to be fair and accurate. Could JVD, Travers, Giggles and Weston work under those conditions. Would you believe them.
PGP,
I agree, kowtowing is generally not a good idea because it shows weakness. However, working with them to create a better understanding would demonstrate strength of character.
It seems that short-sighted conservatives are getting sucked into their own vortex of anti-MSM rhetoric…a bad move…crowd mentality gone wild.
I urge all conservatives to use their own heads/judgement and turn off self proclaimed pundits especially the ones that encite through charm.
steve d said “So how do I get publicity? I don’t do videos. Oh yeah, ad americanum Republicanum bullycanum…” etc.
Except had the PPG accepted the new rules, as they had under previous PMs, this would never have become a story. If Harper then did use this list system to filter out “unfriendly” reporters they could actually gather proof of this and THEN report on how Harper is hampering the press. Instead they choose to react in fear and resist these changes. It was the PPG that decided this was a story, not the PM.
steve d,
Wow, it’s really disturbing to think what goes on in your brain to produce such hysterical delusions. The guy is the PM, he doesn’t need to manufacture publicity.
Steve D and david brown,
Welcome to a world of politics where the rules have changed and you and your ilk are getting outplayed.
The MSM is no longer the only game in town. The PM is doing an end run around the PPG. And it seems to be succeeding. The Liberals and NDP are still playing under the old rules. Times change, boys.
You know the press is biased. The kool-aid is not that strong. The first step is admitting you have a problem. The argument is over who is winning. And it ain’t you.
enough
Speaking of protests, the “French Youth” are at it again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053000403.html
Also seen on Dustmybroom
Why should Stephen Harper trust the media?
by Klaus Rohrich
Monday, May 29, 2006
For some time now the embedded press in Ottawa has been sucking and whining about not having sufficient access to the Prime Minister. The complaints range from there not being enough press scrums to cherry picking on the part of the PMO as to which reporters get to ask questions. While these complaints may well be legitimate, who can honestly blame Stephen Harper for not cuddling with the media?
After all, wasn’t it the Ottawa media that took dictation from the Liberals, helping them remain in power long after their “best before” date? Does the word “scary” ring a bell? If I were Stephen Harper, I don’t know if I would trust the media either, given the fact that they have a long history of actively attempting to scuttle the Conservatives’ ambitions.
If one examines the commentary offered by the Ottawa media, often disguised as news, I am surprised that Mr. Harper is even talking to any of them. For years Canada’s media have successfully portrayed Conservatives as brainless, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal racist morons who would keep women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. So now the media are reaping their harvest of falsehoods and mistrust.
The Harper Conservatives were elected to a minority government as a reaction to the odious and scandal-plagued Liberal entitlement machine, no thanks to the media, who I think would be much happier with a Liberal Prime Minister, anyway. It was only since the Conservatives have been able to put some of their ideas into legislation that their popularity with the electorate at large has grown, again, no thanks to the media.
The media in Canada has a history of making themselves part of the story, which is why a liberal bias is not seen as a liberal bias, while a conservative bias is often perceived as a quasi-subversive bent.
The media soundly criticized Stephen Harper for his scuttling the idea of an Appointments Commission, after an opposition cabal led by the NDP scuttled Gwyn Morgan, Mr. Harper’s nominee for the post. The Parliamentary media were having a field day with that story, as it became reminiscent of old times, having a Conservative nominee outed for being, well conservative.
On the CBC’s web site John Gray, former Ottawa Chief for the Globe and Mail, offers a prime bit of reporting that brilliantly illustrates why Harper doesn’t want much to do with the Ottawa media. Writing about the brouhaha following the committee’s rejection of Morgan, Gray wrote:
“What was not so well known, except perhaps to insiders like Harper, was that Morgan came with a parcel of political convictions that puts him on the very conservative side of the Conservative party. And he expressed those views in a manner that is profoundly partisan.
“Morgan’s speech to the Fraser Institute last December made him something of a poster boy of the right. He began by attacking unions as the scourge of business, in particular for driving the poor leaders of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler to their knees. And he implied that unions are at once responsible for spiralling (sic) public-sector costs and low-quality public-sector services.
“He fretted about violence in several immigrant communities among people who, he said, “come from countries where the culture is dominated by violence and lawlessness.” He took a ritual bash at gun control and then complained that Quebec separatists get federal money for their election campaigns, and that their leader is allowed to participate in the national leaders debate.
“He complained also about the equalization program that provides public money for basic services to Canada’s poorer provinces — “creating dependencies” — and noted that Quebec has for decades received the largest amount of equalization.”
Yes, and…? What Morgan said to the Fraser Institute was a valid and accurate criticism of Canadian government policy, but because it broke with the accepted politically correct orthodoxy, Morgan was deemed “unacceptable” by the extreme leftists sitting on that Parliamentary committee. And for some reason, not many of the Ottawa media thought Harper was right in scrapping the idea of an appointments commissioner altogether.
If you’re looking for genuine democratic reform in Canada’s Parliament, then it can’t be business as usual, meaning that it’s okay to assassinate the character of someone with whom you disagree. Harper did the right thing in putting the idea of an appointments commissioner on hold. The Ottawa media was dead wrong in hammering Harper for doing so. And that’s just one example of why Harper is well advised to avoid them like the plague.
For all those journalists/pundits who have adopted the word PETULANT as the “mot du jour” to describe our PM, here’s just a partial list of synonyms they might want to consider – just in case they want to persuade the people who are still reading their “reports”/columns that they’re not simply echoing each other’s copy. Live a little, ye hallowed journalists! Dare to be different!
PETULANT: (compiled from Thesaurus.com)
Synonyms:
acerbic, acid, angry, astringent, bad-tempered, bearish, belligerent, bitchy, biting, bitter, captious, caustic, caviling, censorious, choleric, churlish, complaining, contrary, crabby, cranky, critical, cross, crotchety, crusty, crybaby, cutting, difficult, disagreeable, displeased, dour, fault-finding, fractious, fretful, grouchy, grumbling, grumpy, huffy, ill-humored, ill-natured, impatient, indignant, irascible, irate, ireful, irritable, kvetchy, mad, mean, moody, morose, mordant, obstinate, ornery, peevish, perverse, pill, pouting, prickly, quarrelsome, querulous, rancorous, sharp, snappish, sour, spiteful, splenetic, sulky, sullen, stuffy, tart, testy, touchy, trenchant, ungracious, uptight, vinegarish, vinegary, waspish, whining, whiny, wrinkly.
From:
http//DebbyeStratigacos.mu.nu
**
I don’t have exact source but here is another fact that makes Canadians suspicious of the motives of some members of the press:
56 appointed for life Senators were journalists (don’t know how many of those were from the Ottawa press corps)
Of these 48 were appointed by Liberals.
**
Clarifies the picture somewhat, I*d say. TG
Some quotes from a CBC hack:
“From Harper’s extreme right-wing point of view, the media is indeed the enemy.”
“It was the media that made Harper a major contender in Quebec, where the Charest machine gave him a modest 10 seats.”
“With media antipathy to the Martin Liberals, suddenly Harper the former Reformer, the right-winger, was the proper vehicle for the media desire for a change in government.”
“Harper’s treatment of the media is that of an ingrate. The media made Harper. The media also first made Trudeau and Mulroney. Later, the media made both Trudeau and Mulroney and their parties suffer at the polls.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20060328.html
“…the proper vehicle for the media desire for a change in government”?
Gee Larry, what is the proper role of the media in a democracy? Something to do with reporting the news, perhaps?
Maybe a week long all expenses paid trip to Banf would help you remember. The CBC must have several of those scheduled this summer.
Interesting how the arguement has morphed from, ‘we made you and we can break you’, to ‘media bias, what media bias?’.
Damn, who’d a thunk there would be a permanent record of your twisted lies?
enough,
The rules may change but fundamental concepts remain the same.
The next election will tell if Harper has done an end run around or is just running away from his responsibilities.
In the mean time just bask in your smug little short-lived glory.
Maclean’s poll question today:
“Should Stephen Harper be able to control which press gallery reporters can and cannot ask him questions at news conferences?”
Is the premise correct?
Has the PM made it a habit to refuse to take questions from specific reporters?
Do we have the names of those reporters, (JVD aside)?
Or has he tried to take questions from reporters who would otherwise not get the opportunity, because of the PPG’s own rules on their selection process?
So, in voting ‘No’ the assumption is there that the premise is correct- that he routinely refuses some.
And in voting ‘Yes’, the assumption is there that we think he should be able to refuse some reporters the ability to put a question?
Both assumptions are incorrect, and the poll is dysfunctional for those of us who know he *will* take the tough questions from all reporters…and that he should take the tough questions.
…and that he should be able to pass over those who have grown accustomed to being called upon first in the past few news conferences….
It doesn’t hurt for the public to hear a question from a different perspective once in a while.
I seriously think he is on to something. Harper has the MSM talking among themselves about him. Writing articles about him. Questioning where the anger came from. Where do we go from here? Will it be this way tomorrow? etc.
On top of that when he comes out with something to say they are poised and listening. Who will he speak to? Will he take questions? Will he take a question from me? etc.
He has them off balance. He has them eating out of his hand. Genius.
I don’t think that the press has figured out yet that they are not held in the same esteem that they were a generation ago. It may be just my selective memory but my recollection is that Knowlton Nash, Walter Cronkite, Lloyd Robertson and their compatriots were highly respected and trusted. They reported the news and didn’t editorialize as much. I don’t see the same respect for Mansbridge, Dan Rather and the current crop of news reporters.
I think that the press are surprised that they are not generally getting the support of the public on this issue. Once they realize that they are even further eroding the public’s trust and respect I believe they will look for a face-saving way to end this impasse.
Now that I think of it, yes Stephen Harper is a genius. He should be encouraged to stay on the same path…brilliant.
Stephen Taylor is a genius as well for pointing out that the person and the message are completely separate. This is more than brilliant and quite original as well. Go Stephens Go!
Petulant whining from the left.
enough
PMSH can acccomplish more with this minority than the Libs did with the majority and there is little or nothing the left wingers can do about it right now.
I am going to just watch and be sure to gloat in my smug little glory. HaHaHa
IMHO, David Brown and his comrades (or clan or family or mob) are going to be crying in their beer for several more years eh.
And they will be really drunk too if they dare play the anti-American drinking game. -lol-
Scoop for SDA?
Date of next election: Monday, October 19, 2009. Harper is quick, Mary M.
From the Prime Minister’s Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)
Canada’s new government proposes fixed election dates
May 30, 2006
Ottawa, Ontario
The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform today introduced in the House of Commons a bill providing for fixed election dates every four years.
The bill also establishes Monday, October 19, 2009 as the date of the next general election. Once the general election is held, the following election would be set for the third Monday in October, four calendar years in the future.
Excerpt:
# Other Jurisdictions with Fixed Election Dates
Provincial Governments
# British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Ontario have legislated fixed election dates, and other governments have indicated that they are considering recommendations for similar legislation.
Other Countries
# Countries that have a fixed term include: Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.
# Countries that have a fixed term, but that allow for some degree of flexibility (e.g., an election must be held within a period of two months) include: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, and Spain.
# Those countries that have unfixed election dates include: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, India, Ireland, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. … more
To my fellow Calgarian:
You can’t be serious (apologies to McEnroe). PMSH “flying around the country in the Challenger on the taxpayers dime making announcements only more crudley and blantantly than Martin”.
Would that be the same Challenger that the Liberals purchased after criticizing Mulroney on his extravagant purchases. Would that be the same Liberal party who just happended to be in town A where there was problem B and it was just coincidence that the federal funds were forthcoming.
Ex-PMPM was electionerring all of 2005 on the taxpayers dime, and if you don’t think so, I’ve got some prime waterfront property for you in beautifyk downtown Balzac.
Sorry about the confusion. What I meant was that MARTIN was doing it much more crudely and blatantly.
It makes perfect sense that Harper should now use the two Challenger Jets (purchased by Chretien from his brother-in-law Paul Desmaris) for campaign purposes just like Martin did. I can’t wait to see the Liberals and PPG squawking when it becomes obvious that Harper has pulled another fast one on them !
Maz: That is a big ten four! I am loving every minute off it too! A government at work, it’s amazing!
MaryM: The government(sic) of AdScam Chretien/Martin was at “work” in the ReloScam, also.
Librano$: a synonym for the rape/pillage of the Treasury of Canada. $$$
Fraser probes $650-million in contracts
SIMON TUCK
OTTAWA — Auditor-General Sheila Fraser has agreed to investigate the government’s awarding of more than $650-million in contracts to help federal employees with relocation services, and a failed bidder says it will sue the government in the coming days.
In a May 9 letter to Liberal MP Shawn Murphy, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, the Auditor-General said her office should be able to complete its audit of the contracts by November. …
g-m via newsbeat1.com
Just read Giggles answers to questions from readers in the G&M. She actually said Harper is a doer and the liberals are in disarray. Reading her bio made me laugh. Top political commentator.