Top two findings:
• While Ottawa politicos and media seemed captivated by the incident, just 14% of our respondents followed it very closely.
• The broad majority of those surveyed (71%) said it had no impact on their view of Mr. Trudeau, 23% said it made them feel worse about him; 6% better.
I’ll put up a link when I can find one. Comments welcome.
It can now be revealed: neo-Nazi Paul Fromm (and Your Ward News supporter) was going to use Parliament Hill for a press conference this week. And senior staffers at PMO and Justice stopped it.
In all the manhandling and elbowing of the past week, it was an easy story to miss. But the PMO and Justice folks didn’t. The minute they heard Fromm was trying to use a Hill press conference room to spread his venom, they swung into action and stopped it. A confirming report is found here.
They’ve had a truly shit week up there, and their boss deserves the shit he’s gotten, at home and at work. But his senior staff deserve kudos for their action in the Fromm case.
Have heard from many insiders that @JustinTrudeau's truly contrite. We should credit smart senior staff and a smart wife for that. #cdnpoli
— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) May 20, 2016
He knew he had made a mistake, I’m told. But he was still read the Riot Act by those closest to him, I’m also reliably informed.
I don’t think he will ever do this again. Credit: smart women.
The three points:
The video:
But.
Meet Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications to the President of the United States of America.
Or, as he was recently described in a headline in Foreign Policy magazine, an asshole.
That’s a quote. “Asshole.” Foreign Policy – that most revered and reserved of publications, the sine qua non of the U.S. diplomatic and bureaucratic classes, has called one of the most powerful unelected people on the planet an “asshole.” In a headline, too.
That’s not all. Foreign Policy also called Rhodes “an overweening little schmuck.”
In the days since the New York Times Magazine published a 10,000-word magnum opus about Rhodes, lots of other bon mots have been flung his way, too. That he’s an out-of-control egomaniac, that he’s a serial manipulator, that he’s an inexperienced adolescent – and, most ominously (for him), that he oversaw a Machiavellian conspiracy that “duped the American public into accepting a nuclear deal with Iran.”
That last one should give Rhodes and his boss and their respective lawyers pause, of course, because it nudges them perilously closer to what Dubya got with his imaginary weapons of mass destruction in neighbouring Iraq. You know: congressional hearings, threats of impeachment, an unrelentingly hostile media, a war-opposing African American in the White House, etc. etc. It was bad.
Obama and Rhodes are months away from the end of their tenure in the White House, however, so perhaps the Republicans and the press will give them a pass. The former is shortly heading off to write his memoirs and give pricey speeches, while the latter is heading back to what he did before. Which is, wait for it, writing short stories. (We’re not making this up. That’s what Ben Rhodes did, actually. He was a creative writing major when Obama recruited him to be a speechwriter on his 2007 campaign.)
But the Rhodes profile in the Times is a cautionary tale for political staffers everywhere, even in far-away Ottawa, Ontario. Because, in it, Rhodes gave writer David Samuels extraordinary access – and he was extraordinarily candid. Rhodes told Samuels, on the record, that the press corps are “27-year-olds…who literally know nothing.” He called the entirety of the foreign policy establishment – including Hillary Clinton – “the Blob.” He said he had created an “echo chamber” of talking heads who say “what we [have] given them to say.” He said some of his colleagues “can’t keep a secret for two hours.” He said – and, again, this is a quote – “I don’t know anymore where I begin and Obama ends.”
Sound familiar?
Sound, say, like not a few “senior strategists” who have blown into town on the wings of someone else’s election victory, achieved unprecedented powers, and then frittered it all away with an ill-advised sit-down with someone like David Samuels?
It happens all the time. A senior staffer succumbs to the siren song of some scheming media inquisitor – You’re so influential! The bureaucracy and caucus respect you so! How did you get so close to The Leader? Was that your words I detected in that wonderful speech/policy/year-end interview? – and, inevitably, they come to profoundly regret it. The newspaper containing the profile piece thuds against their door early one morning, they shuffle to get it in their slippers, they scan it, they frown. They start frantically texting friends: “Do you think it’s bad? Does it create a problem for the boss? Should I demand a correction?”
Take my word for it, having previously taken a celebrated trip to the burn unit, myself: it’s almost always bad. It creates a problem for the boss. And a correction won’t undo the damage.
It doesn’t matter if the profile is highly critical, or highly laudatory, either. If it’s critical, the staffer will anger the boss, caucus and colleagues. If it’s too complementary – as in the Rhodes case – it stirs up jealousy and anonymous back-biting. Either way, it’s not good.
In the Harper era, few staffers would be foolish enough to agree to Rhodes-style profiling, so few ever did. The boss didn’t like it, at all.
In the Trudeau era, the press profile pendulum has swung wildly in the opposite direction: the new crew are big fans of behind-the-scenes stuff, to the extent that we know more about them than we do about most members of cabinet. No major decision seems to go unaccompanied by a subsequent tell-all about the strategic machinations that preceded it.
Is that ever a good idea? Well, ask Ben Rhodes. After the New York Times Magazine published – and after Foreign Policy started to call him an asshole – Rhodes disappeared. Vanished. His colleagues in the press office, meanwhile, started hand-delivering doughnuts to the media. Asked about what Rhodes said, White House press secretary Josh Earnest admitted that Rhodes would now “say it differently if he had the chance.”
Ben Rhodes won’t get the chance. He’s done like dinner. So, remember the cautionary tale that will forever be appended to his name, Ottawa staffers.
To make it easy, you could clip that Foreign Policy headline, and pop it in your wallet.
You know, the one calling the super-powerful, super-influential, super-smart advisor “an asshole.”
I’ve met this guy, talked to him, listened to him. He’s the only Conservative Party leadership candidate who could hurt Justin Trudeau, full stop.
There may be candidates-to-be who could do that, but he’s the only one so far. Watch this guy.
When something this horrible happens, we need to stop, and carefully assess whether we – and our elected leaders, and the police, and everyone else who is paid to pay attention – are doing what needs to be done.
Don’t just ignore this, don’t turn the page. Contact your representatives, and ask them: what are you doing about this? What are doing to ensure this never happens again?
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