In what we are ostensibly to read as a “news” item written by the Canadian Press news service (from which nearly all Canadian print media get their stories), a news reporter named Joan Bryden writes up an investigative piece called “Tories trash talk Dion to put him off his game” today.
As we all know, Conservatives are big fat meaniepants. And that’s a crisis. And a fact. And news. Please set your hair on fire at this time. (Oh and it’s yet another “war on
whatever
” that they’ve engaged in!) .
OTTAWA — It’s the political equivalent of a hockey player trash talking an opponent just before the opening faceoff.
Conservative MPs have taken to taunting Liberal Leader Stephane Dion every time he’s about to skate on to Parliament’s centre ice. They use members’ statements – which precede question period in the House of Commons each day – to indulge in psychological warfare apparently aimed at putting Dion off his game just as he’s about to rise to ask the first question of the day.
For example, St. Catharines Tory MP Rick Dykstra used his final statement Tuesday to accuse Dion of planning to spend billions, hike taxes and push the country into deficit.
Oh dear. Boo hoo hoo. Poor Mrs. Dion.
Then to make all this meaniepantyness official, they defer to the liberal media’s Guidebook and deploy the ubiquitous tactic of securing the official scientific response from a publicly-funded Canadian university professor, because the liberals’ media think that adds credibility to their stories in the minds of the very dumbest Cannoks in Canuckistan —oh and because they know full well that university professors are reliably either ardent left-wingers or a downright Marxists who hate conservatives.
Being hectored by a Tory backbencher before each day’s performance “can’t help but have some effect,” said political scientist David Docherty of Wilfrid Laurier University.
Well then. The debate is over. The science is settled. Don’t be a “denier”! It’s a moral issue! (Etc.)
The intrepid reporter continues her “news” story with this wily observation:
The Tories must think it works. They’ve been employing the tactic steadily since about the beginning of April.
Since ABOUT the beginning of April you say! Well that’s not very accurate for such a crisis. How will it be recorded in history?
In any case, April… May…. why it’s a quagmire! What’s the exit strategy? Is there an end date? No war for, um, whatever this is!
Back to the professor of political science for the answer:
Docherty also noted that both the Liberals and Conservatives remain mired in a statistical tie in most opinion polls, neither within reach of a majority. That suggests the Tories may have successfully implanted the idea of Dion as a 90-pound weakling but that they haven’t particularly endeared themselves to voters by playing the bully who constantly kicks sand in his face.
That suggests that “bully who constantly kicks sand in his face” theorum, then, does it? Now if only we could figure out who the bullies are.
Those damn neo-cons are the bullies, silly! Such anti-science war bully meaniepants. They should just be quiet and take the heat (not trash talk) from the three opposition parties and their media division, their academia division, their bureaucracy divisions, their “human rights” tribunals and commissions divisions, and so on, and be “embarrassed” all day long, until the Natural Governing Party can resume power. It’s the polite Canadian thing to do.
The story appears at Google.com’s Canadian news section, and at Canoe.ca’s CNews site here, and likely in other places where Oprah fans gather to become more “empowered” and such.
(Hat tip to Maureen for the sad tale)
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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