Quickly setting this up for you: the Premier of Nova Scotia is retiring from politics. Turns out it’s deputy Conservative Party leader Peter MacKay’s home province. You won’t be tested on this.
Naturally, then, there’s speculation—only in the media, not among any other person in Canada outside of Nova Scotia’s parliament buildings at all whatsoever—about whether Mr. MacKay might abandon the federal Conservative Party and run provincially in Nova Scotia and become Premier. Or as the media would have it, “The Conservative Party is falling apart, the sky, she be fallin’, the end is nigh… blah blah blah”. You’ve already been tested on this kind of anti-conservative media-driven nonsense a thousand times, and you’ve all passed.
Now they’ve found a new angle. Crafty lot. And here it is: Has the Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, actually asked him to stay? I mean ACTUALLY physically ASKED him personally? (And the method, by the way, is to ask the question over and over 89 times, unless you’re asking a Liberal a question about Adscam, at which point you whisper it unintelligibly once then go for coffee and a Hot Pocket in the Parliamentary cafeteria).
And did Mr. Harper’s little heart-warming note include a smiley face? 
…
…Or the dreaded frowny face? 
…Because Mr. MacKay is a big baby, don’t ya know, and he has to be made to feel “embraced” at all times, or else he’ll go away. A hug—or better yet a big ol’ group hug—is the minimal requisite at this juncture, mm you see.
The media has confused the Conservative Party with the liberal-left girlieman party. And you for a complete and utter idiot.
But furthermore (extra credit, class, if you figure this out!) this Canadian press story seems to have morphed—by accident!—- into a commentary story, or what we here like to call an “opinion column”, in which the writer conjectures and ponders inner meanings based on his inner thoughts and opinions. Let’s review, class:
[…] One senior Tory insider insisted “there’s no story here. That’s Stephen’s personality.”
Harper is a professional, said the source, and expects others to behave the same way. “You shouldn’t need to be cajoled into staying.”
And Harper’s spokeswoman, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, said the point is moot because MacKay has repeatedly indicated to Harper that he would be staying with the federal party.
“Peter always said he was going to stay in Ottawa, so it’s kind of an odd story,” she said.
Then the reporter morphs into an opinion columnist before our very eyes right about here:
That’s not to say there isn’t an issue.
The easy speculation is that Harper wants his deputy out because MacKay keeps stealing the limelight. More Machiavellian minds might see MacKay painting Harper in a negative light.
Or it could just be the latest case of poor Conservative optics, a byproduct of Harper’s debilitating lack of people skills.
See how that works? The story, which is being invented in the first instance, isn’t therefore able to be anti-conservative enough on its own—simply because there’s no story! So it needs a little help. You sometime have to help make the Conservative Party look “debilitated”.
Class, this serves as an excellent example of how to turn a mole hill into a mountain of fantasy.
Sometimes you gotta, I mean if you’ve got a personal message you need to get out there to the public, and you feel as though you need to have the public see things in a certain way.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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