Jason Lietaer is Tea Party Tim Hudak’s official spokesman. He’s also a former Big Tobacco lobbyist.
This morning in the Star, as noted, here’s what we all read:
“Astonishment,” eh? Well, take a gander at this, Jason. And, because it’s Monday and because I’m a nice guy, I will not accuse you of lies, and being a lying liar who tells them.
I’ll let others do that.
Compare the Reform Party Blue Book to the stuff coming out of the Ontario PCs this morning. The similarities are striking.
Norman liked this quote, for some reason, so here’s a link to the story, too!
“Harper’s got too many kooks in his caucus, so something will bust out.”
Starting an election campaign lying to reporters isn’t a smart thing to do. But that’s what the PCs and the Dippers are doing this morning, with this story.
What the opposition operatives neglected to tell the Toronto Star, of course, is that they’ve been denying the public access to their events for quite some time now. What they declined to say to the reporter is that paranoia, secrecy and Soviet-style tactics have been their favoured approach for weeks.
Read the story, then look at the notice below. It was a notice the PCs were handing out to people at their August 30 event at the “K.W. Gaming Centre,” where they were present as the guests of special interests who want to put slots in bingo halls across the province. Anyone who came close to that event, or any event since, was threatened by private police and civil lawsuits.
Like I say, don’t lie to reporters. Sooner or later, you’re going to get caught.
The notice:
From one blogger:
“What is interesting is that the Toronto Sun, which actually ran fake stories in the federal election just to support their Conservative friends, feels compelled to speak out against Hudak.
It’s not like they’re driven by integrity to evaluate Hudak’s plan honestly. We can only assume that the conservative editors of the Sun are genuinely unimpressed with Hudak’s performance, enough so that they’d actually argue against him to the detriment of the conservative cause.”
Two things. One, I don’t think it’s fair to simply tag the Sun, for which I write as a freelancer, as wholly uncritical of Conservatives and conservatives. In the year I’ve been writing for them, they haven’t once – not once – asked me to remove or moderate a criticism of any conservative hobbyhorse.
Two, and increasingly, I’ve been hearing/reading conservative blogs, etc. which have been decidedly unenthusiastic about Tim Hudak. The choice issue is a good example of why. Pro-lifers genuinely feel like he has equivocated on his previous pledge to defund abortion – while pro-choice folks feel that he’s being dishonest with them, too (cf. he “may have” signed a petition to defund).
In the past few weeks, Hudak’s been criticized by Ernie Eves (on the Tea Party stuff), John Tory (on a plethora of issues), and he’s been offside with Bill Davis (disrupting a Davis speech) and Mike Harris (attacking alternative energy, in which Harris’s firm has invested). The list goes on and on.
The guy is blowing the PC coalition to bits, from top to bottom. What’s amazing is that he’s doing it on the eve of an election.
His campaign has hit a couple of bumps. The candidate for the riding of Pickering-Scarborough East, Salmon Farooq, quietly withdrew his candidacy last March, just days before he was charged with fraud. The Tories parachuted in Kevin Gaudet, a high-profile advocate for lower taxes, to replace Mr. Farooq.
The party also faced criticism over the ouster of Tory MPP Norm Sterling, who served in the legislature for 34 years. In a speech at a dinner for Mr. Sterling last Thursday, former Tory premier Ernie Evessaid the party’s treatment of the veteran MPP was not fair or compassionate.
“People were startled,” said one person who was at the dinner. Most of the more than 200 people in attendance applauded, he said. Mr. Eves was referring to the fact that Mr. Sterling lost a nasty nomination battle last March against Jack MacLaren, a local activist with the Ontario Landowners Association. Mr. Hudak acknowledged that having a “contest within the family” is difficult.
Somebody at PetroCanada/Suncor needs to pull the security tape of this incident, I’d say. And, I think, fire that franchisee. The mother needs the Riot Act read to her, too, I think:
Warren: Witnessed a terrible accident at a Petrocanada station (Don Mills & Lawrence) A mother allowed her 7 yr old son to pump the gas and he took the nozzle out while still holding the handle down. She wasn’t watching and the child had gas spray ALL OVER his face, eyes, nose and mouth. I alerted her, he was screaming, I told her to get him into the bathroom, and start flushing with cold water and I callled 911. The gas station attendants DID NOTHING!!!!!!!!!! They just went about their business like nothing at all was happening. I was so shocked that there seemed to be no emergency procedure in place – no special “station” with solution for flushing eyes/mouths…NOTHING. When I got home, I called Petro Canada and lodged a complaint but they couldn’t care less. I mean the kid could have burst into flame…it was awful.
