...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Coren unpacks the “debate” (and other matters): From his regular perch in the Saturday Toronto Sun, Michael Coren comments on plagiarism (i.e. that Harper speechwriter who, some years ago, stole some lines from the Australian P.M.), arts funding and other failed Liberal Party “gotchas”:

…The non-event of the alleged plagiarized speech pretty much sums up the election. Nothing said, nothing done and oodles of lies. Such as the trash talk about arts funding, where what is fundamentally a corrupt buddy system has at long last been reformed. I've been involved in Canadian publishing for 20 years now and have seen the most extraordinary abuses of your tax dollars. Much of arts funding is a make work scheme for people who are terrified of one day being made to actually work.

The reason Quebec has reacted so strongly is that the only way they can preserve what they foolishly assume to be a separate identity is by spending vast amounts of money on it given to them by people with a different separate identity. In effect, western Canadians pay for Quebec cultural and arts institutions to produce invariably dreadful French language television, books, radio and theatre. It is Quebec's self interest, not artistic integrity, that is threatened.

Beyond the policies, the internal disputes are hilarious. Liberals say they have complete faith in Dion, much as the emperor's servants had to pretend that he had nice new clothes. Three leading Liberals already have announced privately that they intend to run for the leadership and the number likely will increase once the election is over. If truth be told, their campaigns began some time ago.

As for media complaints that Harper is too controlling of his candidates, this is the super hero of irony.

AMBUSH

The reason he controls them is that overwhelmingly leftist journalists consistently try to ambush them.

During the last election, for example, one of our leading political commentators was personally briefed by gay activists before she interviewed Conservative candidates and told what to ask so as to try to embarrass them on the same-sex marriage debate.

It's all democracy light. A large financial and moral investment for a severely limited return. Little if anything will change and, let's be candid, we all watched Sarah Palin on Thursday night instead.

Speak for yourself, Michael. I actually started to watch the Canadian debate (which turned out not to be a “debate” so much as it was Harper as Israel and the other three leaders as the UN). It was so riveting, however, that I promptly fell asleep.

Guess I should have watched Palin/Biden after all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:03 | link | comments (1)

Comments:

Comments: