Saturday, April 23, 2005

The Toronto Star's Flaming Red Pants

Because it consistently uses half-truths, the Toronto Star manages to spread manure, and yet leave the reader thinking it's roses.

Today's editorial manages to do something Paul Martin couldn't even do in his whinge on Thursday -- it exonerates him:

If voters are determined to punish Martin for what took place on his predecessor Jean Chrétien's watch, they will have as much opportunity to do so in February as they would have in June. (Emphasis, mine).

They persist in the fiction that because Harper and the Conservatives said openly that they would not defeat the budget and bring down the government, that Harper in fact supported it:

— a budget that Harper and his Tory party strongly supported -- . . . and conclude that if the election is held now, Canadians will suffer without the (budgetary measures) Harper himself backed exactly two months ago today.

Never mind that Harper was clear -- the budget might pass, likely would pass, because the Conservatives would not vote against it, but in his statements after the budget was released he was clear that although there were things in it they found reasonable, there was much that the Conservatives objected to:

(T)his budget, while it will get this government through this spring, does not give any confidence in this government’s ability to lead the country into the future. and Harper summed it up:

. . . We will therefore not defeat the government over this budget. While we will allow it to pass, we will also not vote in favour of this budget.

How does the Star-- so eerily like the Liberals-- manage to take such liberty with the truth, and yet remain largely unchallenged?

It's one thing for people to disagree over policy, or over the timing of the election, but when they rely on deliberately skewed information in order to support their POV, it becomes beyond frustrating.

You can't win arguments with liars -- their fragments of truth stick in the minds of the ignorant and ill-informed.

One can blurt out a lie, but sometimes the truth needs explaining -- unfortunately, most people read the headline and move on.


canadianna, hoping for a better Canada

Just the Excuse They Needed

For all those smug liberals out there, who whine and complain about the state of the country, and then keep voting Liberal 'because Stephen Harper (read - Stockwell Day, Preston Manning, or any other conservative) scares the hell out of me' -- the Newspeak propaganda campaign that began the other night is all they need to excuse themselves for holding their noses and voting Liberal.

Paul Martin and his cronies seem to be masters at exploiting the weakness of the Canadian public.
His simpering display, though pedestrian and blatantly politicing, will undoubtedly comfort enough of the people into thinking that a vote for the Liberals is a vote for the guys who simply want to govern -- rather than the other guys who are power hungry and want to call an election when the Liberals just want a chance to find out the truth.

Why anyone would believe this is beyond me. But people seem to want to buy into the all the BS the Liberals spew. You see the blogs and elsewhere that there are a lot of us who don't, but when it comes to election day, they win.

I can't help but feel like this is 2004 redux. The Conservatives will be painted as a species of lower evolution, and despite what they are and what they seem to be the Liberals will coast to power -- the only difference this time, I think, will be that they'll be handed a majority for their troubles.

GHU,

canadianna, hoping for a better Canada

Friday, April 22, 2005

Paul-atics as Usual

You've gotta wonder about people who think the Gomery report is going to clarify anything.

The biggest problem with last night's demonstration of Newspeak from our ponderous PM, is that the odious tactic of begging for time seems to be working.

The Editorials of our two national newspapers, the Globe and the National Post came down sympathetically on the PM. The Globe concurs with him that the Gomery Report should be tabled before an election, and the National Post says that the allegations are still only allegations -- as though the Gomery Report will magically change that.

They go on to talk about "Chretienites" and "Martinites" and the bloodfeud between them as though some Liberals (remember the 'mad as hell' speech?) can still be trusted. I guess that I should pay my taxes this month, confident in the notion that only some Liberals are crooks so at least some of my money might go to something worthwhile. Maybe.


Surprisingly, although the Liberal poodle, Toronto Star says that we should wait for Gomery, they also say:

Harper properly asked last night how his party can continue "to prop up" a government accused of corruption.

Does Paul Marin not realize that by stating he'll call an election after Gomery, he's already admitting culpability. He's saying that even though his crew got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, we are supposed to trust them to be the guardians of said jar until we've heard "the facts".

We'll never know "the facts".

The Gomery Report can't tell us anything we don't already -- some people -- some Liberal people -- in the Quebec wing of the Liberal party, where Paul Martin was the #1 guy -- were and are: incompetent, inept, corrupt, criminals, and/or con artists.

I don't want some of these guys in charge of my cookies while I'm waiting to find out which ones should go to jail.

canadianna, hoping for a better Canada

Paul Martin Doesn't Disappoint

I couldn't be disappointed by what I knew to expect -- listening to Paul Martin tonight made my stomach churn.

You'd think we'd be used to it by now; Liberals spinning and spinning until they make us sick.
What's worse is listening to call-in shows where people just don't get what's going on. They seem to think that somehow the Opposition is stalling the working of parliament, rather than the government standing frozen like a deer in headlights.

Tonight's TV spectacle was well timed -- what will tomorrow's headlines in our (L)iberal media be . . .

Paul Martin Pleads for Time From Power-Hungry Opposition
or
Paul Martin's Finance Ministry directly linked to Adscam

The newest revelations, documented at Gomery, show that the Finance Department increased the value of a contract when Paul Martin was finance minister, and that one of his friends was paid $75,000 for doing little. This interesting piece of information might well be bumped to the back of the papers tomorrow, in favour of the bleating from the PM.

I still hear people saying that Martin did the 'brave' thing calling the Gomery Inquiry, and that it should be allowed to do its work. Where were these same people when he shut down the Public Accounts Committee in order to call an election? Why didn't these people hold Martin and his cronies accountable last year at the polls when they had a chance? Martin called an election before Gomery could even get started and now he tells us give Gomery a chance to give his report?

Do they think we're stupid? We don't need a judge to tell us how many cancer cells there are and exactly how they have been ravaging the nation -- let's just cut out the whole rotting bunch. If we cut the good with the bad, well, Gomery can let us know in October, and maybe someday we'll let those ones back in.

Denying the opposition parties their days in parliament, and tonight's ignoble display -- using the public airwaves as a free political advertisement rather than facing the harsh light of the House just proves once again that this Liberal government in general, and Paul Martin in particular, has no shame.

canadianna, hoping for a better Canada