Dear Mr. Harper: Love Isn't Easy
In today's Toronto Star, we have James Travers chastizing Stephen Harper for naming David Emerson and Michael Fortier to Cabinet posts. The article talks about the move as if all hope for integrity had already been lost in this minority CPC government, and says it has betrayed voters' shiny hopes of moving away from a dirty, corrupt Liberal regime. Hmmmm. Where was the Toronto Star during the last election? The piece comes across as a broken-hearted letter from a jilted lover. Why, oh why, Monsieur Harper, when I loved you and stood by you, did you do this to me? I don't even know you anymore.
You see, the Star has traditionally been a Liberal leaning paper. But I knew something was starting to go wonky a few years back when former evil Mike Harrisite Guy Giorno was given his own op-ed column, which he used as a mouthpiece for a flailing Eves government. Anyway, it remains to be seen where this trend is going. Hey, maybe the folks over the Star are thinkin' anti-establishment is the way to go now, in which case, I'm all for it! But for time being these 14 year old school girl editorial decisions are making me angry. I mean seriously folks, when intelligent people start feigning shock at politicians doing questionable things, don't you start to question their intelligence? Or at the very least, don't you question their motives? Canada, politics, k-dough, liberal, conservative, harper, Ontario, kdough, criticism, neo-con, commentary, communications, legislature, Chretien, election,policy, hand guns, Toronto
You see, the Star has traditionally been a Liberal leaning paper. But I knew something was starting to go wonky a few years back when former evil Mike Harrisite Guy Giorno was given his own op-ed column, which he used as a mouthpiece for a flailing Eves government. Anyway, it remains to be seen where this trend is going. Hey, maybe the folks over the Star are thinkin' anti-establishment is the way to go now, in which case, I'm all for it! But for time being these 14 year old school girl editorial decisions are making me angry. I mean seriously folks, when intelligent people start feigning shock at politicians doing questionable things, don't you start to question their intelligence? Or at the very least, don't you question their motives? Canada, politics, k-dough, liberal, conservative, harper, Ontario, kdough, criticism, neo-con, commentary, communications, legislature, Chretien, election,policy, hand guns, Toronto
posted by K-Dough at 6:57 AM
16 Comments:
If I was a newly elected Conservative MP, who used to be Reform, and who'd spent years of loyal service in the backbenches of opposition, I'd be pretty pissed.
A Liberal and a party staffer make it into Cabinet??? And I'm stuck on the farm with my dog and a shovel!!! Darn it all Mr. Harper, you said you was gonna make me a somebody!
He may be a dipstick - a good looking dipstick- but he has no back-stabbing bitch apppeal like sweet Belinda.
The situation is not comparable to Belinda Stronach crossing the floor. Stephen Harper was to blame for her decision. He basically pushed her out of the party days before the big Budget vote (smooth move there Stevie-boy!).
I can't fault her for leaving when she had deeply entrenched philosophical differences with a leader who told her there was "no room in this party" for someone like her.
David Emerson, on the other hand, has no apparent reason for this apart from desperately wanting to remain a Cabinet minister. I mean, the election was just weeks ago. He appeared in Liberal ads touting the party as being the best to lead Canada, and now he crosses the floor?
This action is a perfect illustration of how Stephen Harper (like Peter McKay, David Emerson and, we'll probably soon find out, many other Tories) sorely lacks the integrity he pretended to have.
If he had an ounce of integrity, he would never have offered a Cabinet seat to a Liberal when he was claiming months ago that it was a betrayal and that crossing the floor ought not to be allowed without a byelection.
This government's just lost the next election. Mark my words.
Jeepers, you guys write a lot before I even wake up.
Oh no... the Red Star is against Mr. Harper's move? The lad might as well pack it in today.
At first, I didn't like the fact that Harper was welcoming a Liberal into Cabinet. But if the Star is against it, I might have to reconsider.
How convenient that the scribes who ran cover for the bad guys in the last election have all of the sudden determined that integrity matters.
I would have figured that acting like a Librano would earn Harper some brownie points with the Star. Go figure.
Seriously, though, the Canadian people elected 100+ Liberals in the wake of all the slime and dirty dealing.
Obviously, principles and ethics don't matter to many Canadians. The Star speaks to those people.
Me thinks the Star is just mad that Harper is horning in on their (i.e. the Liberals) territory.
GWGM- lol... So am I to assume that you are now an avid reader of the Star .
Oh my, how power corrupts!!!!!!
k-Dough: For a few years, I managed to stomach the Saturday Star, quickly discarding sections in search of the Wheels pages.
But that issue they did a few days before the election was the kicker; the thought of one cent going from my pocket towards 1 Yonge St. was unbearable... so I cancelled it.
As for 'power corrupts', to paraphrase Clinton's gang when they got the keys to the military... "Those are OUR defectors now!"
Just kidding. I was a scrutineer at a polling station on election day and dropped off some flyers for the losing Tory candidate in my riding. But that's the extent of it.
What Harper did yesterday reminded me why I could never be in politics. I would last about five minutes.
You might have to be like Belinda to succeed in that game, but I just couldn't do it.
Forget the fact that Belinda switched sides. Forget who you voted for. Forget party lines and the new government of Canada. We, as a Canadian populous, especially the constituents in Vancouver-Kingsway, should be irate about the abandonment of David Emerson to a ministerial post in the new government.
WHEN YOU ARE ELECTED ON A SPECIFIC PLATFORM, YOU DO NOT SWITCH SIDES 14 DAYS LATER! I don’t care if he didn’t completely tote the Liberal line and I don’t care if he wanted to step down or leave politics. But when you turn traitor to the constituents who voted you into office, who gave you their trust, who pay your bills, (some voting anti-Conservative instead of pro-Liberal), you do NOT turn around 14 days later and feel you have the right to change sides on a whim. At a future time, after consultation with your constituents, it might be more acceptable to stand independent. But who is Mr. Emerson (undeserving of ‘The Honourable’) to think he has the support of his constituents in such a drastic and serious decision 14 days after being elected?
This is the crux of false pretensions producing a government with no accountability. We, the populous, are the accountability factor and should demand this turncoat step down for he clearly doesn’t represent his riding.
While I'm not inherently opposed to switching parties (life isn't black and white and in response to a particularly incomprehensable action by a party, I can see why someone like Belinda would switch), Emerson's actions are completely unacceptable. So he did it in order to have the most impact in the government -- that's so private sector. He's not going to waste his time toiling in the opposition benches, after all, he's a successful businessman. To me, it's a privilege to be a Cabinet minister OR a backbench MP, but I guess leading a massive private sector company hasn't inflated me ego to the same size as Emerson's.
In any case, if Emerson truly switched in order to have the most impact, why bother having parties at all? Why don't you just fight it out for Cabinet positions?
By accepting Emerson into their ranks, the Conservatives are proving they're just as lacking in accountability as the Liberals were. I hope that Canadians see that they were duped into thinking the Conservatives were any better.
Clearly, the best choice is the NDP.
I'm no dipper but I hafta say, their plank re: forcing by-elections to give a floor-crosser a mandate make perfect sense to me.... I think it should seriously be considered for any democratic reform package that may come forward.
Dippers are particularly ferocious in their criticism of those who cross the floor. Ontario New Democrat MPPs still appear to smart over the defection of David Ramsay to the Liberal party.
Odd though that so few defect in the other direction.
Ah, the seductive lure of power.
Oh how a sip from the Ottawa Kool-aid can change one's tune.
The Tories have made big strategic error here. I can just imagine the meetings in Ottawa over the past week or two..."Hmmm, who do we have to buy off?, who do we have to appease?, where will votes be needed in the next election?" Treating the electorate like a bunch of vacuous ciphers. Nice play. I say they should have simply danced with the ones that brung them. And hey, those vacuous cipher-like voters may have woken up to the fact that Harper and a bunch of hayseeds just may have been able to run the country after all. Ahhh, but then again, they were probably guessing that I would say this, and have "strategized" a crafty response that I have yet to hear...
My opinion is that this is about as low and base a political move that's been perpetrated since Brutus' betrayal of Caesar.
I mean, a guy who spends YEARS, literally, harping (should that be Harpering?) on about the need to restore legitimacy in Canada's political system (i.e. the illegitimacy of an unelected, unaccountable Senate -- and the minister in charge of Public Works, one of the biggest spenders of tax dollars will not be accountable in the House of Commons), who rails against crossing the floor when a Conservative star candidate crosses the floor (with, mind you, at least a defensible reason for doing so, unlike David Emerson), and his FIRST ACT as PM is to undermine, in a spectacular fashion, Canadians' already-threadbare trust in their (mostly) elected representatives.
This is a national scandal. This is a CAREER-LIMITING MOVE of gigantic proportions. Harper, Fortier, Emerson (and Reynolds and the other backroom boys who brokered these Cabinet fiascoes) deserve the greatest public censure for this cynical, manipulative and deeply insulting manouevre.
I fully support the Liberal (and NDP) voters in the Vancouver riding, whose wishes have been contemptuously discarded in this deplorable and odious plot, in their sincere and fully understandable desire to force a byelection on Emerson.
And, the Liberals, if they were smart, should capitalize on the Fortier situation by having one of their Montreal candidates (Paul Martin?) stand down to force a byelection there, paving the way for Fortier to run (would he have the guts to? Would he have the brass neck not to? Well, probably.).
That would embarass the hell out of those cowards, and the Liberal would be returned with a landslide and Harper would be humiliated and taught a lesson on leadership by the man we've just (unfortunately) thrown out of office. Are you reading this Mr. Martin? Of course, probably not.
Oh, and even of those other fine, upstanding ministers who've been appointed, we have some elements of controversy: a Justice Minister who plead guilty to an offence under provincial election law, which ought, by ANY reasonable standard, to bar him from being Justice Minister, if not a minister at all; and a former MILITARY DEFENSE COMPANY LOBBYIST put in charge of the Defense Department just as billions are going to be spent on new military equipment. Oh, but he'll be completely impartial in making his decisions, right? We'll see. I am not very hopeful.
Well said HS...eloquent, yet emotional. I laughed, I cried. My testicle twitched.
K
K-dough, I am not surprised you cried.
I've heard through the grapevine that you are such a big crybaby you used to ball during the Muppets when Miss Piggy would karate-chop Kermit. :)
Hey K-Dough,
Even though we don't agree on a whole lot I commend you for this honest and reflective portrayal and for being someone who sticks to what they believe in with integrity and intellectual honesty. Great post. Keep up the great work.
Yomin - from the other side of the aisle.
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