Just now at the Monarch Tavern

So there we were at Charlie and Tenio’s annual Gentlemen’s Lunch, having a festive time, and all of a sudden – what to our astonished eyes should appear, etc. – a nasty political scrap over by the bar!

I am reliably informed the fellow from Northern Ontario was not victorious.

photo © WK


Maclean’s does it again

The magazine says Canadian universities are “Too Asian.” Previously, it called all of Quebec “corrupt.”

This is turning into a pattern.

In both cases, politicians called for the magazine to apologize. (In respect of the Quebec mess, its parent company did apologize; in respect of the “Too Asian” headline, it has deleted that intolerant headline, and expressed hope that it caused “no offence.”)

Are you convinced?  (See that?  That’s a Maclean’s trick.  Say something really offensive, but follow it with a question mark.  That way, you get to say it, still, but you can hide behind the question mark if things get too hot.  To wit: IS MACLEAN’S RUN BY TOTAL IDIOTS?)

Anyway, getting politicians involved just turns it into a big free press thing, with predictable results.  Much shrieking and braying, etc. etc., nothing really achieved.

But if average citizens and community groups are upset – and with the “Too Asian” edition, they truly are – that’s something Maclean’s can’t so easily dismiss.  They need to carefully consider what is being said to and about them.  If nothing else, they need to think about what they are doing to their credibility.

Will they change course?  Who knows.  Rush Limbaugh is quite popular, I suppose, but I doubt there’s a soul alive who still considers him a journalist.


Operation Alienation continues apace

Someone in the offices at 131 Queen Street seems to think it’s good strategy, I guess, to keep blaming the very popular former Liberal MP – you know, the guy who is now the very popular mayor, and who also won the riding for more than twenty years with huge pluralities – for the Vaughan by-election loss.  When the authors of that particular misfortune are to be seen, as they say, in the bathroom mirror.

It’s not accurate, it’s not fair to Maurizio, and it’s short-sighted.  But what do I know?


Hebert (and Wells): Ye reap what ye sow (updated)

Hebert:

“If NDP and Liberal leaders Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff had taken the advice of their elder statesmen and looked for a way to pool forces earlier this year, the result of their joint efforts would likely be doing better in the polls than their separate parties.

Instead, the end of 2010 finds the two main national opposition parties on opposite ends of a teeter-totter. They are each ensuring that the other does not go up very high or for very long.”

A great friend in Ottawa asked me this morning if I am “an elder statesman.” I’m elder, I said, but not much of a statesman.

But Chantal’s observation is the truth, nonetheless: if the people in Ottawa had listened to Chretien and Broadbent, they’d be in much better shape by now.

Anyway. Whatever; we tried, we failed. Stephen Harper must be a very happy man, indeed.

UPDATE: And now Paul Wells has commented on Hebert’s comments.  It’s a groundswell! Anyway, as one of those “currently [and happily – ed.] largely discredited,” I urge you to read Wells’ column, and not just because I agree with it.  My take, of which I’m living proof: things in politics are usually not as complicated as they are made out to be.  It’s so simple, in fact, it barely merits saying: uniting warring progressives makes them stronger. Also simple: your main opponent – you know, the guy who united warring conservatives to successfully win power – will do everything he can to prevent such a progressive union. Like Wells says: “[Harper] needs to scare Michael Ignatieff off the structural-realignment dime if he is to hold power. Fortunately for him, the prime minister’s task is not particularly difficult.”

Anyway, it’s not going to happen anytime soon.  It took the Right three election cycles (1993, 1997 and 2000) to get together, and win.  It’ll take at least three more election cycles, over almost as many years (2006, 2008 and maybe 2011 or 2012), for the Left to realize, what Pogo famously observed so long ago: