You know that old saying, "It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by a bunch of turkeys"? That is surely how the Prime Minister must be feeling this morning.
He's running a great campaign. Modest, solid proposals in risky times. Much more relaxed and confident that we’ve seen him before, but almost every time he turns around some damn turkey is gobbling away in the woods distracting a delighted media from the real issues.
The latest of course is the Agriculture Minister and his silly jokes. We do this kind of thing all the time in the news game.
"Black humor" it’s called. A recognized method of blowing off some steam and relieving the pressure. But for a cabinet minister during an election campaign? Geeze!
No doubt Mr. Ritz let his hair down a bit believing he was on friendly territory. A conference call with members of the Prime Minister's Office and Health Minister Tony Clement’s office. Just as obviously there is a Judas somewhere there in the mix. Somebody in somebody’s office decided they’d like to blow the Conservatives out of the water, so they blew the whistle. Lovely stuff, but a minister of the Crown should be a bit smarter for heaven sakes!
I don’t know about you, but I for one would love to get up there in that so called war room and pound some sense into a few turkey brains. I’d also find out who the traitor is and boot his or her sorry butt out onto the street!
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7 comments:
You know, I can't help but believe that if it was Jack Layton or Stephane Dion using 'black humour' and 'blowing off steam', you'd be all over it like a bad suit.
Ritz is the Agriculture minister, under whose watch food inspection was essentially placed in the hands of manufacturers. The listeriosis outbreak is the result of this. To the families of the people who became ill or died as a result, I'd wager they would have a hard time finding 'black humour' in this situation.
I agree that what you refer to as "black humour" is pretty common. A lot of us do it when dealing with stressful situations. However, most people are careful about the context in which they use such humour and in politics, perception is important. As a cabinet minister, Ritz should have known better. Further, reports have indicated that as many as 30 people participated in that conference call so Ritz would / should have had no expectation of privacy. I don't think the PM should fire Ritz. That would feed the perception of him as a control freak. Ritz should take one for the team and resign.
Dumb -- handing the opposition the ammo for their MSM guns. You can be sure that the media (the true masters of hyperbole and tabloid-style gossip) will play this for all it's worth.
If the left makes a platform plank out of this conservative faux pas, it will only show how vacuous the left really is.
I think this is a blatant display of racism from the mainstream media!
Had the minister used 'white humour', all would have been fine! But he happened to use 'black humour'! So he is villified!
When will people realize that the colour of one's humour is not important? That it is how well it can relieve stress or tention?
Oh, but no. This bunch of racists will never accept humour, just because it happens to be 'black'.
Sheeeeesh!
What is the running tab now we'll be paying for Dion's promises? Is this man mad? He's throwing around Billions of dollars in promises to everyone he sees and we are on the verge of a very serious economic slowdown! Trying to bribe us with our own money after he steals it from us with the carbon tax? Neutral? The only thing neutral in this campaign is Stephane Dion's brain.
I agree with you. This would have been worse if he said these things in public, but he did not. It was a stupid thing to say, but we all say something stupid once in a while, especially in private.
However, the media always had it in for anyone on the conservative side. They always operate with a double standard. It almost seems that they are desperately trying to find bad things, however trivial about the conservatives, while giving the other parties a free ride.
Example: the pooping puffin on that website, probably designed by someone the conservative party doesn't know, got big media attention. As if Stephen Harper himself did it in his spare time. On the flip side, you have an actual statement made by Elizabeth May, in public, calling Canadians stupid. Not a peep! (Of course, her intentions may be left to interpretations, but if it had been a conservative(!), even just a volunteer at a conservative office somewhere... well, that would have been a different story).
The pundits and media talk about attack ads, and that the conservatives are bad bad bad, while I remember Liberal ads, that were sheer lies and scare tactics, in previous elections (remember that gun barrel aimed at the tv watcher and the aircraft carrier...)
The media talks about how the conservatives record on the environment is not good. But they never talk about the Liberals record on the environment... it's much worse, but again, not a peep.
They talk about some ministers or aides "gaffes", but nothing about Bob Rae's record while Premier of Ontario, for example.
To the contrary opinion of some, the media does have enormous power when it comes to people's knowledge in elections. Many people I know personally, who do not follow politics, but vote anyway because they feel they must, rely on the headlines and news stories to help them decide who to vote for, because they do not follow such things at any other times. This demographic is a large one, the pollsters call "undecided", and unfortunately, the main source of information for them to decide is... the media.
Marc
Keeping my eye on the "important" issues is what I try to do as mentioned here it is not arts funding or Stephane Dions ability to make a comeback.
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