Very sorry to hear of his passing. A great Canadian.

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Well-written, carefully reasoned and – as with all of his treatises on this subject – completely full of shit.

When I wrote for the National Post, and Kay was my editor, I was not permitted – in any way, shape or form – to publish anything remotely positive about the paper’s imagined demons: The Toronto Star, the CBC, whatever. They would refuse to publish it. Full stop. I still have the emails.

Kay can write about “red lines” all that he likes. But nothing can obscure the fact that there’s a great big one at the National Post, and it starts at Jonathan Kay’s computer.

Oh, and at the Sun? In my two years of writing for them, I have never been prevented from writing about anything.

Never.

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Here’s Michael Harris, aptly-named Ontario PCC MPP FOR A KITCHENER-AREA RIDING. At a PRESS CONFERENCE.

Oh my Lord Almighty, I love these guys. I hope they never, ever change.

THeir awsum!

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…but I (and you) knew that already. Which is beside the point: the Sun folks, whose opinions I vehemently disagree with 99 per cent of the time, are open about all this. They don’t pretend to be free of bias, like too many other media organizations do. They’re proud of their bias.

The Sixth Estate folks missed a couple things, too: Bonokoski sought a Canadian Alliance nomination, and Worthington was a Progressive Conservative aspirant. There may be others, I can’t recall.

Point remains, however: nobody – with the exception of media fantasists – believe the media is without an agenda. My take: if you’ve got a view, be honest about it.

My view, meanwhile, is the only right one!

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And no less than B’nai Brith agrees Jim McDonnell’s characterization of opponents as Nazis is a disgrace:

“There is no place in Ontario for invoking the racism, hatred and violence that characterized Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime to pursue a political agenda. Such a comparison is insulting to all Ontarians, especially to the Jewish community and the Holocaust survivors and their families within it…We feel that without an appropriate and informed apology, Mr. McDonell’s original unacceptable statement still stands. Blaming others for misinterpreting his words does not constitute an apology.”

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Here.

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From a respected Toronto municipal columnist:

In essence, someone has to save the mayor from himself. He cannot be rehabilitated. He doesn’t “get it” when it comes to appropriate behaviour of a public official. He is surrounded by too many people who embolden him and too few who can knock sense into his ample skull.

But there is a tipping point, a straw that will send the embarrassing bundle that’s Rob Ford tumbling into obscurity. You can bet on Rob Ford being Rob Ford — which means he won’t see it coming.

From a respected Conservative analyst, in the pages of the Sun no less:

No one disputes Ford’s passion for the game of football and helping kids, but does this give him a free pass to ignore and skirt rules and regulations he does not agree with?

Unlike Ford, the kids who participate in his football program cannot do the same thing in life without suffering serious consequences.

When Ford does it, he is being a poor role model for these young people, as much as he may sincerely want to help them.

If it was just a one-off situation, most people would look the other way. But as the litany of the mayor’s bad judgment calls is revealed, what lessons are these kids actually learning from him?

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The most pro-union paper in the country:

…the moral high ground that teachers’ unions claim to occupy is slipping away..the unions are exploiting ordinary Ontarians for their own pecuniary purposes.

How can teachers explain to students and parents that they will now be used as pawns in a pointless struggle that is mostly about union leaders saving face and venting anger?

With the battle lost, teachers may think they are fighting for next time. But any party in power would treat teachers more or less the same way as the governing Liberals — as they have in the past — because the money is not there…

It’s beneath teachers to bring their political fight into the schoolyard. The unions have already punished McGuinty for overreaching and rushing things, and they will have plenty of opportunity to play the parties off against each other in future campaigns.

Keep the kids out of it.

Nobody on the public payroll should be allowed to “bank” sick days. Nobody – particularly post-recession – should expect big raises anymore.

The teachers had the moral high ground, as Cohn says. They’ve now lost it.

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Does the Globe now plan to do likewise for “conservatives?”

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At Bishop Carroll, we were obsessed by the film, too. But mainly because it was scary.

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