03.07.2011 08:45 PM

Lilley vs. Mulcair

Personally, I support Lilley and (like many people, most of them in the NDP), I think Mulcair is a jerk.

Read the Hill Times transcript and cast your own vote!

20 Comments

  1. Blues Clair says:

    Easy, Mulcair.

  2. Cath says:

    Lilley all the way! Mulcair just made himself a journalist’s dream:-)
    Get well soon Jack…..the kids are out of their playpen.

  3. Dan F says:

    I don’t disagree with your assessment of Mulcair, but he still sounds smarter than most other MPs, and to the Liberal’s advantage, as leader he might be able to unlock some of that Bloc vote and move it over to a federalist coalition partner that we can work with. (Especially in the next election after this one, if Duceppe decides to leave)

    But then, I’m a lefty Liberal, who thinks some of our best progress as a country came when parties worked together to get things done (like health care) back in the day.

    If not for a minority government with a socialist partner back then, we might still be stuck with American style health care. What a horrific thought.

  4. What was that quote of yours Warren? Something about ticking off people who buy ink by the barrel? Hee hee hee

  5. Tiger says:

    I think Lilley asked the question in a deliberately provocative way, and he definitely provoked Mulcair. But he wasn’t wrong to ask the question. (I’d’ve phrased it more delicately.)

    Fair is fair — reporters have done that to other pols over the years — but I bet we’re going to see more stuff like that over the next while.

    It’s an Americanization of Canadian political media — but that isn’t to say it’s necessarily a bad thing.

  6. Sean says:

    Its ugly, but I think the non conf. motion is already having the effect that some people wanted…

  7. Sheran Steane says:

    I agree warren and I find it is painful to listen to some of them.

  8. nic coivert says:

    Truth hurts.

  9. Bill King says:

    I’ve always thought Mulcair was as arrogant as Iggy. Once again he proves it. The fact that Mulcair himself asks far more speculative, hypothetical and unsubstantiated questions in the HoC is completely lost on him. Glass houses – throw stones?

    Cheers,

    • nic coivert says:

      Ah, but is he as arrogant as Harper and the PMO, who reside in a Glass House of their own design. In other words it is not transparent but completely opaque.

  10. briguyhfx says:

    Lilley: “When did you stop beating your wife?”

    Mulclair: “Please show me some evidence that I’ve ever beat my wife before asking that question.”

    Seems reasonable to me.

    • The Doctor says:

      That about sums it up.

      As our politicians and journalists continue to focus on the important issues and challenges of our time . . .

    • dave says:

      I am almost deaf. Sometimes I tell a joke or come out with a ‘bon mot’ and I realize from the looks of horror and disdain on the faces of my pals that I am repeating something that one of them has just said, and which escaped my conscious hearing. I always continue on as if I do not know the depth of my social sinning. Their shared but unspoken disappointment with me is a constant delight to me.

      I guess that it is spilling over into what I read.

    • Matt says:

      Mulcair IS a jerk, there’s no two ways about it.

      As far as the evidence goes, isn’t it fairly obvious from the article where it states, “CBC radio news report Sunday night as saying Mr. Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) said an election was more likely than not”

      FACT: Mulcair says an election is more likely than not

      FACT: If an election is more likely than not that means it is more likely than not that the NDP won’t support the budget

      FACT: Mr. Layton, the Party Leader might i remind you, has repeatedly hedged his bets and is hoping for some common ground on the budget.

      Ipso Facto Mulcair appears to be going against his leaders previously stated public position.

      To do that while your leader is layed up in hospital is a classless act from an individual that has shown little class during his time in Ottawa.

      • Namsake says:

        Sorry, but there are at LEAST two ways about it, and this whole presentation of yours — and Lilley’s — is a house of cards which the OTHER side to the dispute completely pulled the rug from under.

        FACT: This character judgment / assassination is all premised on TIM POWER’s claim that Mulcair was still actively threatening an election despite Layton’s hip surgery.

        FACT: Powers claims this was based on something he heard on CBC radio on Sunday — but he didn’t specify the quotation, the program, or the context, which makes it pretty suspicious and almost unverifiable for most of us.

        FACT: Tim Powers IS a Conservative spin-meister, not an impartial journalist.**

        FACT: Mulcair denied saying anything of the sort since Layton’s latest health problem became an issue, and defied the journalist relying on second-hand, improperly sourced, unverified information to produce any evidence otherwise… which said journalist was completely unable to do.

        FACT: Three weeks ago, other journalists working for the same (Post) media organization that Powers was righting for were chortling that it was Mulcair who was being undercut by Layton, since Mulcair had been doing yeoman’s work insisting that the NDP was still very much opposed to corporate tax cuts — and had been stumping for that for weeks — while Layton had apparently completely capitulated on that in his meeting with Harper.*

        FACT: Both the Post & QMI media organizations sowing this discord against the NDP would greatly prefer that the NDP DID capitulate and support the Conservative gov’t, PARTICULARLY on continuing the corporate tax cuts.

        FACT: Even if Mulcair appeared a bit insufferable for making this a “teachable moment” by proceeding to take Lilley to school in front of his colleagues about the inadvisability of posing loaded questions based on highly questionable information provided by highly partisan sources, the FACT is:

        he had good grounds for that, since, as the extended clip makes clear, this is the second time this has happened recently, and he’d given him the benefit of a very private correction the first time, but Lilley apparently disregarded that courtesy and decided to be a serial offender.

        So, yeah, I’m with Coyne and several of the commenters here on this:

        “When did you stop kneecapping your leader? I’m on Mulcair’s side here. Absent some evidence, it’s an unfair question”

        http://twitter.com/acoyne/status/44918274340823040

        * (I recall — possibly faultily! — John Ivison chortling about that on Power & Politics 3 weeks ago, & Ibbitson has been tracking the NDP’s position on corporate tax cuts with great interest:

        http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-takes-corporate-tax-cuts-off-the-table/article1913724/

        http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/ndp-teeter-totter-tilts-toward-spring-election/article1885979/?service=mobile

        http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/corporate-tax-cuts-could-bring-down-government/article1887996/

        ** http://www.summa.ca/en/index.php/timothy-powers/

        http://www.thepolitic.com/archives/2009/08/20/timpowers/

  11. dave says:

    I saw this on CPAC, I’m pretty sure I heard what the reporter said, and how he said it. It really was a ‘Did you quit beating your wife?’ type of journalism. I thought that Mulcair made an appropriate response, – He did not drift the snotty media guy.

  12. Rye says:

    Those who wish to watch the exchange can here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4EhSVCHHQ

  13. Anne Peterson says:

    I thought Mulcair was right. Journalists just go around speculating. I think they should spend more time researching. They are lazy and want to create the news.

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