A groovy trend watcher’s editorial in the liberal Globe and Mail (Bell Globemedia) by liberal Lawrence Martin contains some very amusing gems but it is mostly amusing because it’s missing so many accessories, like you know, like facts? Like?
For one thing, it’s called “Harper Tories swimming against tide”. Wow. Nice shallow attempt at making voting for Harper appear untrendy just 110 days after he was sworn in as Prime Minister. You should be touting the summer collection Mr. Martin, not last winter’s.
Then he really jacks up his trendometer in a editorial seemingly premised on the thesis that Al Gore—yes freaky Al Gore, is on the trendy comeback trail, and untrendy George Bush won’t win re-election. No, he does not mention that George Bush isn’t up for re-election.
In the U.S., the progressives are being recharged by none other than Al Gore. Suddenly, the former vice-president, just as “electrifying” as he used to be, is back in vogue.
“Electrifying”, huh? Back in vogue, huh? Where? On Entertainment Tonight? At a Dixie Chicks concert? Go Al go! It’s a trend! Smoooch!
While Hillary Clinton has become so politicized that none of her beliefs appear to be more than skin deep, Mr. Gore, who hasn’t ruled out a challenge, is rooted in principle. Americans love a comeback story.
And who knows Americans better than Canada’s liberal-left media? For that matter, who knows Canada better than Canada’s liberal-left media?
The narratives of nations change. In the United States, conservative ideology as embodied by George W. Bush is under siege.
[…] One of the few places where the hemispheric tendency is being bucked is in our very own liberal bastion. Stephen Harper’s bold conservatism tilts against the windmills.
His timing is off, though. Brian Mulroney was elected in 1984 when the conservative revolutions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were in full sway. Mr. Harper enters the fray when such movements are in distress or retreat. He comes along when the ascendant issue of our time, climate crisis, is cornered by the left and when the other cardinal cause, Iraq/terrorism, is mishandled by the right.
Herein lies the big hope of progressives. That the Harper Conservatives find themselves on the wrong side of history; that they become a lonely outpost of the right on two continents; that their Prime Minister gets caught up in Mr. Bush’s grim tides, imprinted with the wrong ideological stamp on policies ranging from global warming (where he is already in trouble) to war and peace.
He somehow manages to forget to accessorize. Forget that the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, was just re-elected. A conservative, and a pro-Iraq-War conservative at that. And anti-Kyoto. Leave aside the Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, who was just re-elected. A pro-Iraq-War Prime Minister and ironically anti-Kyoto. Nor does he mention that a conservative Christian Democrat was just elected in Germany and that Conservatives are making gains in the U.K. after their pro-Iraq-War Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was re-elected just last year primarily on the basis of continuing the fight in Iraq.
[…] In Latin America, the trend line is much the same. The region may not be making the big swerve left as some claim, but it sure as blazes and Bolivia isn’t going the other way. […]
Well. Bolivia. Hmm. Never done thought of them folks.
Read Ann Coulter’s column (here) from March 29 —for a far better perspective and from someone who’s even more fashionable than Martin.
And I like this quote from her March 22 column:
The media are constantly telling Americans what they believe: You are dissatisfied … You are getting more dissatisfied … You are slowly becoming utterly dissatisfied … Your dissatisfaction is now reaching a fever pitch!
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