“Like it or not, the Liberals have long been our political gods, turning this awkwardly giant land mass into a field of realizable dreams. But the gods have changed. No smaller concept can encompass what happened to Canada in the spring of 2011 — when for the very first time voters handed a clear majority to a government run by a politician whose ideals and goals seemed antithetical to the country I thought I knew.”
Newman is just too “liberal” himself, to see that evolution has caught up to Canada as it is everywhere in the western world. Theft, cheating lying are not a good traits to emulate.
Earth to Peter Newman – Canadians with these values have ALWAYS been here, ‘hiding’ in plain view from sea to shining sea to shining sea, but people with your values have been willfully blind to us for decades.
Your GREEK fisherman’s cap tells us ALL we need to know about YOUR bankrupted value system.
“No smaller concept can encompass what happened to Canada in the spring of 2011 — when for the very first time voters handed a clear majority to a government run by a politician whose ideals and goals seemed antithetical to the country I thought I knew.”
Well then, Peter, perhaps there’s a message for you here.
The country has moved on and so should you.
Enjoy your retirement!
Newman is 82 years old, and just saw all his years of Liberal boot-licking go down the drain. Can you blame him if his words are stained with tears?
‘Our gods, the Liberals’ – barf.
Peter C Newman never had clue about what this country was about. Even 30 years ago, he was so far out to lunch, there were serious questions as to whether he knew where all his marbles were.
When I swing by Chapters later today I expect to see stacks of Mr Newman’s book on sale for $5.99.
When I swing by Chapters later today I expect to see stacks of Mr Newman’s book on sale for $5.99.
Peter C Newman and Craig Oliver are two angry old white men.
It’s interesting that the intelligencia never once thought that there could be people in the east whose response to “the west wants in” would be “that sounds like a good idea. So do we.”
“Even 30 years ago, he was so far out to lunch”
Try 40. His book on Diefenbaker was on a from an eastern liberal viewpoint. Talk about an irrational target. Diefenbaker would have comfortably fit in the Liberal Party and we westerners loved him.
I think the need for the Liberal Party is long past. Any extension of rights to some group involves taking them away from someone else and the results begin to look stupid. The cost of adding social programs makes for oppressive taxes of unsustainable borrowing.
A rational liberal knows they’ve accomplished their objectives and it’s time to do. The NDP with their Marxist roots has no compunction about oppressing people or ruining the economy.
“to the country I thought I knew.”
Proving, Peter, that you don’t know squat and didn’t know squat.
Kinda fun when Liberal morons admit in public they are dumb as a bag of hammers.
It is lovely and so enjoyable to watch Liberals and the LPC twist in the wind, dangling at the end of their very own rope.
Lovely indeed.
Somewhere, Warren Kinsella gets off his therapist’s couch and does his best imitation of the primal scream.
“Gods” — LOL. Once again Ann Coulter is proven right: she’s been saying for years that because leftists tend to be secular, there’s a god-shaped gap in their lives which they fill by literally worshipping their political leaders. (See: Obama, Barack.)
But very few come right out and admit it as Newman did.
Flush…
Oh, great. I join the thread and find it full of accurate, barbed comments which sum up this farcical little fellow perfectly. Good stuff, folks.
Flush indeed. Another liberal (Newman) is circling the bowl, flush with anger that the “Natural Governing Party” is not in power to bestow upon him a seat in the Senate after years of dedicated fart-catching.
Just ask Craig Oliver.
So Peter C, sets out to write a book about the pending coronation of Mikey I and has to switch mid-stream to a requiem for the LPC…prety good indication of what he “thought he knew”…
Alfred E. er I mean, Peter C Newman should take heart. Harper has just run up a 50 billion plus deficit. That must be a good sign for leftists like himself.
The western world has already swallowed the system poison of the left …. we are on the slide so try to enjoy the ride down as best you can.
Given Newman is such a literary figure, he may recognize this:
Exodus 20:3
“You shall have no other gods before me.
I believe that includes the Liberal Party of Canada(LPC). Delighted that the scales are dropping from Peter’s eyes. Wakey, wakey arise from your slumber…
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
The country has changed – Newman hasn’t. Change is the one constant in life. No doubt there was a time when Newman wanted the country to change – and it did – under Trudeau. There are few things more selfish and self-centered than to expect an entire country to bend to your ideals.
Newman pretended to be friend and confidante to Brian Mulroney, then he betrayed him by publishing his most personal thoughts and feelings in a gotcha book.
Newman is a typical Liberal snake.
Hey Peter, stay retired. No one misses you.
So I wonder when he meets him today does Newman still drop down on one knee to kiss the ring of the pious Pope Ignatieff. This will be one book that will be going down on my Xmas list as, ‘don’t ever buy me this book.’
Agreed Gord
Why Canada is ungovernable. Newman and Toronto consider Harper and the CPC to be right wing lunitics who are not worthy to govern their country. We in the west consider Harper and the CPC acceptable, but too far left of center for our liking. Quebec is always off on a tangent somewhere and thus a majority government like we have will become a rarity. When the resergence or the Liberal party occurs, or the liberals all migrate to the dippers, Toronto will again decide that they are entitled to the wests wealth. That will be the end. About time.
So. He sobered up enough to string some words together?
The Canada he thought he knew is not the Canada that it needs to be in order to survive..
If the feds distribute the old and new seats properly we can be assured that the ‘center of the known universe’ is never in control again.
The Liberal party of Canada was going down ever since Dief’s majority. Ever since then they have relied on smaller and smaller enclaves of Canada to provide seats for government. With Dief they lost the West, with Brian M they lost Quebec and with Harper they lost Ontario. And they have never returned because when someone that had always voted for Liberals finds they can vote for someone else and do better they never go back.
Before Dief the Liberals were the party of Canada, today they are the party of Montreal.
The Liberal party of Canada was going down ever since Dief’s majority. Ever since then they have relied on smaller and smaller enclaves of Canada to provide seats for government. With Dief they lost the West, with Brian M they lost Quebec and with Harper they lost Ontario. And they have never returned because when someone that had always voted for Liberals finds they can vote for someone else and do better they never go back.
Before Dief the Liberals were the party of Canada, today they are the party of Montreal.
Its been a long time since I read it, but I think Newman wrote a very good popular history about the HBC. You would have thought that in the course of his research he would have discovered that Canadian values included things like enterpise and hard work, and that there was a Canada before St Pierre.
Newman apparently doesn’t know the difference between Rex Murphy and Tim Murphy: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1089269–liberal-party-dead-new-book-proclaims
It’s also interesting that Newman totally ignores the role of, never mind Trudeau, but above all, of Chretien in the demise of the Liberal Party.
It was Chretien who cemented the party into one based around, not political policies, but financial cronyism and special interest groups, including private corporations such as PowerCorp and the Desmarais. And located only around Montreal-Ottawa. The rest of the country was irrelevant.
And it was Chretien who cemented Trudeau’s multiculturalism into blocs of special interest ethnic groups, whose votes were bought and paid for by the Liberal govt/taxpayer.
Chretien who set up Quebec as eternally on the cusp of separation, and he and his Liberals as the only savior of the whole nation.
And Chretien who ignored that Canada was no longer demographically located around Quebec and Ontario; and that policies rewarding only those two provinces were inadequate. Chretien who continued Trudeau’s ignorance of and contempt for the West.
And Chretien who, after his fall, ensured that the money, which came to him from big Corporations, would no longer be sent to Liberal coffers – with his last-minute Bill that rejected Corporate donations to political parties. After all, the Liberals had lived off that for decades.
Newman’s article was amusing, but you guys comments are just hilarious.
When you have a liberal predicting the final demise of their own ideology, and blaming the people not the ideology (of course), you know conservatives has scored a big victory.
But not to worry Mr. Newman. Give the Tories the gov’t for 4 or 8 years and they will screw it up too. Liberals will live again. It’s the competition that makes things better, products and politicians.
It would also seem that Chretien ixnayed corporate donations purely out of spite. Internecine war over who had the right to lead the NGP assured the current situation. Serves them right.
The first comment at the link,by “johnnyblog” is excellent,should be reposted here.
“Johhny” articulates exactly why Ignatieff was such a bust.
Newman:”The voters sensed that he wasn’t one of them”
How ridiculous,Peter, he ISN’T One of us,never was,never will be. He’s a perfect example of how disconnected the Liberal “gods” have become from the average Canadian.
“Gods”? I always thought they were arrogant assholes,not deities.
The Liberals brought about their own defeat,and they can cry “foul” about attack ads and misrepresentations all they want,but like the Vancouver Canucks in last year’s Stanley Cup final,they simply had their asses kicked by a BETTER TEAM,period.
I’ll wait for Newman’s latest propaganda piece to appear in the bargain bin for 99 cents,before I bother to buy it,no sense paying more than what it’s worth.
That he expected to document the coronation of Ignatieff in an election tells you just about all you need to know about what follows.
Given that expectation it is hardly surprising that he writes with regret. It was clear to most outside the hardcore Liberal party supporters that Iggy was not “everything they never knew they wanted”.
Poltically inexperienced, not connected into the party infrastructure, unaware of what party infrastructure does, ideologically distant from where Liberal activists are. Finally the constant denial that this guy had an understanding of what Canada was when he wasnt here….at all…sigh….that you have to explain that continues to floor me.
I am not against world travellers, or university professors etc. Ignorance or arrogance makes you think that someone can move from the position he was in to being Prime Minister in a short timeframe.
The Conservative ads didnt lie, if they did they would have failed. they pointed to an underlying truth, it might be “unfair” and it may have been exagerated or out of some larger context but so what. Canadians are smart and mature enough to see through things if they arent true.
So boo effing hoo, there were no apologies for the umpteen times the Liberal party exagerated and distorted other parties positions and leaders. They will die, because they cant take it and they have suffered a moral (not morale) collapse. They dont believe in themselves or anything anymore quite frankly.
As for Newmans lament that we are will lose effecient government….and that we will become polarized…..ulm…..government effeciency, while being hard to acheive is never the goal, and polarization….what a old fool, he knows better that it has always exosted and always will. It just isnt his “type” of polarization.
Newman has jumped the shark and lost his touch. Living a little north of me in Rich Man’s Hill hardly surprises me.
Peter you better forget everything you knew and re think and build a new framework. How could he have missed the changes in the last 30-40 years, I put it down to willful blindeness.
The media, in general, just doesn’t get it. We weren’t allowed to mock Chretien’s speech nor that of the NDP guy who sounded like a stroked out grandmother but Preston Manning was fair game. The Conservative “hidden agenda” and “guns in the streets” were reasonable assumptions according to the media while the conservative use of the “visiting professor” was cold and unreasonable.
Why did the Liberals get trounced? Because their lies were getting stale and nobody believed them anymore. The Conservative had ruled for 5 years and weren’t all that scary. The Liberal simply forgot the game of politics and relied on the Divine Right of Liberals to win.
psst…Fred @ 10:56 – the expression is “as sharp as a sack of hammer handles”.
I passed him on the sidewalk very early one morning when the place was pretty empty. From half a block away I thought: That old guy looks like Peter C. Newman. As I walked by him I realized “that old guy is Peter C. Newman.”
My point is this: Who dresses up like himself? It’s like every day is Hallowe’en and he’s always going as Peter C. Newman. What’s with the hat? He’s so desperate for recognition he might as well be Kim Kardashian; but at least she changes her outfit sometimes.
Peter Newman? …Peter Newman? … where do I know that name? … is he lead guitar for Nickleback? …….
Black Mamba
I met Joe Whatshisname..er..Joe Who on the street in Calgary one day, incredibly enough he looked just like himself on Hallowe’en also…
“No smaller concept can encompass what happened to Canada in the spring of 2011 — when for the very first time voters handed a clear majority to a government run by a politician whose ideals and goals seemed antithetical to the country I thought I knew.”
Is this discovery that the nation does foster the notions of his isolated echo chamber?
Or is it evidence that you can only fool the people so long and now he is denial that he was fooled that long.
Lefties are self-appointed spokesmen for the people…
When I swing by Chapters later today I expect to see stacks of Mr Newman’s book on sale for $5.99.
Posted by: MikeK at November 19, 2011 10:27 AM
Yup, wouldn’t surprise me. However, I’ll get better value for my money if I spend $5.95 on the newest Franklin the Turtle book.
So many well deserved comments. Heh, heh.
$5.99, .99, do I hear .50 cents at the Sally Anne?
Actually his Merchant Princes was a well done book, but Peter always dreamed the Liberal dream.
Peter Newman, when I asked the wife about this guy she had no idea who he is.
Neither did I until I googled him.
FREE
ditto here, and if I have read him in the past, it wasn’t memorable
“Canadian Journalist Thinks Toronto Is A “Country”
Sigh, if only…or at least a separate province with all the political clout of, oh, let’s say, Nunavut.
Is not Iggnatief the son of Newman and Margret Atwood, or was that Jack ? The Iggster certainly is boring enough to be progeny of Newman except when he goes into “rise up” mode, then He da man.
What puke, what drivel! Apparently Newman sees himself as a self-appointed apologist for Ignatief’s failed leadership. The whole idea of Liberals being our political gods, our entitled elite, smacks of the inflated sense of self-importance that caused Canadians to kick them to the curb in the first place. Apparently that irony is lost on Newman.
Newman claimed he was attacked by Stukas in Biarritz France in WW11. Conrad Black went there,searched for records of attack and found nothing.Newman fabricated story.
At 82 Newman is still young enough to jump into the NDP camp and try again. Even with Jack gone the potential for a best seller would surpass anything Iggy could have come up with. Hell, his book might even fetch $6.99. Failing that, he would only be 86 after the next election and we all know there is a potential book in Elizabeth May.Well….a short story anyway. $1.99.