12.02.2011 09:55 AM

The best columnists

The best columnists, my friend and big brother Angelo Persichilli once advised me, “are never, ever predictable.”

By that standard, Kelly McParland is becoming one of the best columnists around.  See here and here, and that’s just this week.  Not something I’d expect in the Post, and therefore impressive.

(He’s not perfect, however. Let’s not get carried away.)

25 Comments

  1. Dan says:

    Yes. He’s been a joy to read over the last couple of months. While I don’t agree with everything he writes, I like how, for the msot part, he calls it like it is regardless of political stripe.

  2. Marc L says:

    One of my favourites too. Even though his leanings are Conservative, he keeps his distance from the current government and has no qualms about slamming them when they do stupid and objectionable things or implement bad policy, as is the case with the Cotler affair. I like his style too.

  3. Warren says:

    Gord, he is readable because he doesn’t ceaselessly regurgitate conservative talking points, no matter what the issue is.

    All of us encourage you to give it a try. You’ll sleep better.

    • Harith says:

      But that would ruin his confirmation bias!

    • Pat says:

      List them. Is it the brand of orange juice they serve at events? Or whether Harper is a great PM, or the greatest PM?

    • Ted H says:

      A bit defensive on this issue? As Carl Rove said “when you are explaining, you are losing”.

    • The Doctor says:

      Gord, what was sloppy or inaccurate in McParland’s column?

    • frmr disgruntled Con now happy Lib says:

      Mr. Tulk……just what things do you and the Conservative Party NOT see eye to eye on…….in my whole time on this fine forum, I have yet to see you be critical of your own party once…..if you were, perhaps I wouldnt see you so much as the resident Con party apologist……

  4. Ken says:

    What was your Conservative Party’s motive in possibly breaking public and private law, then, Gord?

  5. Warren says:

    Hey, no fancy Latin around here, big guy! This is Stephen Harper’s Canada! None of them foreign lingos here!

  6. Jon Adams says:

    “My posts here are my own and no one else’s.”

    http://warrenkinsella.com/2011/08/the-best-front-today/#comment-49206

  7. The Doctor says:

    Gord, McParland was entirely fair in comparing the Cotler affair to Segretti and Company’s bag of tricks. That is exactly the sort of thing they did. Dirty tricks. McParland was not comparing it to the Watergate break-in, and you are being disingenuous in suggesting that McParland did so.

    Gord, you are picking the wrong hill here . . .

  8. Patrick Deberg says:

    Gord,

    I’m curious about two things. Seriously, Are you paid through a third party to post on this or other sites? And how do I get a gig like that?

    • JStanton says:

      … actually, the contrary. In effect, gord pays to be a Conservative shill – in time, expenses and cash contributions. gord is the real deal, a “true believer”. He actually believes that he is helping to create “the best of possible worlds”.

      I admire that perseverance, that doggedness, that strength, and have seen it from zealots of every stripe. But it is a shallow, callous and self-serving thing, ultimately, and never ends well.

      I’m reminded of Colonel Kurtz, and the self-delusion that he cultivated, in order to cope:

      “We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying… We went there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile–a pile of little arms…And then I realized…..like I was shot with a diamond…these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled wi th love–that they had this strength, the strength to do that”.

      Colonel gord tells himself stories about the rightness of his mission, and the nobility of his fellow true believers, but, in the end, they are just stories, and real children are hurt.

      .

    • Philip says:

      Intially I thought that Mr. Tulk was one of the 1500 social media contractors the Conservative Party had hired. The sheer volume of his AstroTurfing, the lock step recitation of Conservative talking points all pointed to a typical Craigslist Conservative. I was completely wrong.

      As noted above, Mr. Tulk actually puts his own time, cut and paste skills and money into his online crusade. JStanton’s comments are right on the money.

      • Warren says:

        …and I want to stress that Gord is welcome here. Unlike many of the hateful far-right web sites – where progressives get called “leftards” and “liberals” and the like – I don’t want comments to simply become like-minded people agreeing with each other all the time. That’s the sound of one hand clapping, and it’s boring.

        From what I can tell, too, Gord is a true believer. He’s a misguided fellow, but I know we all want to show him the courtesy that his fellow conservatives deny us.

  9. smelter rat says:

    Bullshit. Again

  10. unintelligentia says:

    Let me get this straight: disagree with leftist position = zealot. Cue profane cymble-crash punctuation, courtesy of smelter rat. On the subject of child-killing, nothing hurts kids like the left. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Paul Pot. . . You can’t beat Gord with trite Apocalypse Now quotes. Dig deeper.

    • JStanton says:

      …well, since you want to “get this straight”, let me point out that you evidently are in a state of confusion.

      Firstly, simply disagreeing with a “leftist” position (whatever that actually is), does not make one a zealot. Misguided, intellectually lazy, and perhaps even foolish, perhaps. No, to be a zealot, you have to fanatically manifest your disagreement, to an extreme point, using extreme methods.

      Secondly, to suggest that historical totalitarian sociopaths such as “Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Paul Pot” reflect what you call a “leftist position”, is disingenuous and clearly absurd. In fact, it is their anti-leftist, totalitarian nature that, were they not merely sociopaths, would enable them to be accurately characterized as being on the right of the spectrum.

      .

      • unintelligentia says:

        The state control that leftism requires invites totalitarianism. You can’t just filter out the extremists because they do not flatter. Take the smooth with the crunchy. The left has lots of crunchy.

        • Jon Adams says:

          Let me get this straight: disagree with Gord = leftist. Cue ham-handed invocation of Godwin’s Law, courtesy of unitelligiblia. On the subject of incomprehensible paragraphs, nothing tortures the English language like Nature’s Harmonic Convergence. Mike, Neil, Rick, Vyvyan. . . You can’t beat JStanton with trite aphorisms. Consider editing.

      • Philip says:

        I think I went to school with a Paul Pot.

  11. unintelligentia says:

    Good point. I could have left the Nazi’s out and still had an impressive body count.

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