01.27.2014 08:39 AM

In today’s Hill Times (and tomorrow’s Sun): Mark Adler, the face of Parliamentary irrelevance

 

Makes you wish we had Ken Dryden again, doesn’t it?

Mark Adler, that is. The Conservative York Centre MP was notable only for one thing, before this week. He was the guy who beat Dryden, the respected lawyer, the bestselling author and the former NHL star. That was his sole achievement: he somehow beat Ken Dryden, whose skates he is not fit to sharpen.

Thereafter, Adler drifted into the well-deserved obscurity that is the Conservative backbench. Like most of the nullities who applaud every bit of flatulence emanating from the Prime Ministerial nether regions, Adler became famous for doing, and saying, nothing of consequence.

Last week, as we all know by know, Mark Adler became a bit better-known, but for all the wrong reasons. Sounding like a petulant child, Adler whined and pleaded with a PMO staffer about getting into a photo with Harper in Jerusalem. It’d be the “million-dollar shot,” he mewled. He got overheard. A nation laughed.

At him.

The Million Dollar Shot Man is now the punch line in the ongoing joke that is much of Harper’s backbench. He is the nobody who cravenly whinged and wheedled about his desire to become a somebody.

He isn’t. He was background scenery, he was a prop, on the trip that (per Rick Saultin, no anti-Semite) saw Canada become “a province of Israel, at least when it comes to foreign policy.”

For Harper, and for a whinnying underling like Mark Adler, it was not enough that we lost a seat on the UN Security Council.  Or that nobody really listens to us internationally anymore. No, for Harper, it was essential that Canada also become an appendage of Israel’s governing Likud Party.  So he, and the Million Dollar Shot Man went to Israel, at taxpayer expense, along with several dozen Conservative Party donors and not a few kooks.

Quite the trip Harper and Co. had to the Middle East! If their objective was to annihilate the name Canada built up during the era of Nobel-winning Lester B. Pearson – as a smart, strategic player on the international stage, one whose voice was more respected than any other non-superpower – well, they did that, in spades. They blew it to bits. Oh, and if you disapprove or disagree? You’re an anti-Semite, like Nelson Mandela.

When criticized about Harper’s servile approach to the Likud Party, Conservative grovellers – like the repugnant Chris Selley, ever-ready at the National Post – will say: “Well, at least he knows where East and West Jerusalem are, unlike that Chretien poltroon!”

Whatever. Not always knowing where one part of Jerusalem ends, and where another starts, is a lot better than the Harper regime’s approach approach: that is, to say that all those squiggly lines on Middle Eastern maps should be redrawn to accommodate the formidable ambitions of Benjamin Netanyahu.  And to Hell with anyone else.

We all knew it was going to be a fiasco of a trip, an extended lullaby to Likud, long before it happened. But few expected it to be this bad.  Messrs. Adler and Harper outdid themselves: they’re as crappy at foreign policy as they are at domestic policy.

Ken Dryden, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.  Come home, soon.

 

9 Comments

  1. david ray says:

    but as Adler said… he was just joking. don’t smoke that trope. Argggggggggggggggggg

    • pc says:

      His attempt at explanation really uncovered how truly inane Adler is. Does he really think that cracking jokes at the Western Wall is any better than carrying on the way he did? Some might argue it’s worse, which, given his behavour, would be quite a feat.

  2. .. Well .. Mark Adler affirmed his inconsequential and whiny ideology,
    vacant ethics and responsibility to Canadians ..
    .. and compounded his ‘stance’ by claiming it was all a joke ..
    So.. what? He went to to Western Wall… to observe Harper’s sham or joke?
    And seeing it unfold, jumped in to add his humorous schtick .. and to camera comment ??

    Its ‘Empty Adler’ … just another Harper gasbag..
    If he was a car.. it would be a car than only reverses..
    never goes forward.. a rear view mirror idiot..
    servicing.. backward nobodies ..

  3. po'd says:

    Well, there is this.

    “Call it the Loyalty Act. According to the bill brought forward by MP Mark Adler of the York Centre riding, if the disclosures turn up suspicious past political activities, MPs or senators could then demand an investigation of the offender or offenders.”

    http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/01/17/Harpers-Legislated-Loyalty-Threat/

  4. david ray says:

    finally someone is taking a fucking huge shot at Harper in this US backed anti keystone ad to run during Obama’s State of the Union address. Between Neil Young and these guys the kids in short pants are coming up against some serious pushback and from the Americans. Booyah. cue ezra and the usual loons cause

    things are gonna start getting interesting right about now
    dylan
    http://nextgenclimate.org/KeystoneTruth/

  5. Robin says:

    A genuine “Million Dollar Photo” is this:

    http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com/2012/09/summit-series-heroes-ken-dryden.html

    An unparalleled “Million Dollar ‘Shot'” is this:

    http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/09/21/the-one-and-only-goal/

    The Parliament of Canada needs more prominent and accomplished Canadians instead of people who believe getting elected is an accomplishment and need to plead for photo ops in order to appear prominent.

  6. Matt says:

    Dryden isn’t running again. The Liberal candidate is Michael Levitt.

  7. terraderma says:

    The ‘Million Dollar Shot’- simply stated by Ron Jeremy as the ‘Money Shot’.

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