From Mark Steyn:
Stephen Harper makes a few mild observations on the political realities of the Liberal state and everyone recoils in horror: by pointing out the "politicization" of the courts, the civil service, etc, it's Scary Stephen who's "politicizing them". My old comrade Andrew Coyne has chapter and verse on the absurdities of this: it's ridiculous to get outraged over statements of the obvious - since 1993, 89% of all political donations by federal judicial appointees in Ontario have gone to the Liberals but we're supposed to pretend it's a scrupulously non-partisan bench.
Meanwhile, the strikingly similar formulations of the press criticism of Harper's remarks tend to confirm them: why, you'd almost think they were re-typing Grit war-room e-mails. And why wouldn't they? The over-regulated Canadian media offers limited job promotion opportunities except to waft upwards into Liberal patronage positions (as my National Post colleague Anne Dawson has just done). Consider, for example, the curious attitude of CTV News to its own polls: On Tuesday night, it was 42-24 to the Tories - the biggest lead of the campaign - and ol' Lloyd buried it. Well, maybe it was one of them there "rogue polls". But on Wednesday it was 41-25 - and they buried it again. I guess Harper should be grateful Lloyd didn't go with "Tory lead plummets in poll shock!" CTV seem to have adopted a Lady Bracknell attitude to their polling: to produce one massive Tory lead may be regarded as a misfortune, to produce two looks like carelessness. (The Western Standard's riposte to CanWest's Don Martin, complete with audio of his phone messages, makes a similar point, and with macho back-room Liberal fellatial banter, too!)
The scandal isn't Harper drawing attention to the politicization but the unwillingness of the thoroughly politicized organs of the Trudeaupian state to see it. Consider this small item: the Liberal Party solicits donations from the Privy Council Office employees at the office. That's merely the gazillionth tiny sign that the party no longer understands the codes and conventions by which the Westminster system operates. I'm not arguing that, in their elision of the line between party and state, the Grits have turned us into the Soviet Union. But, as I've put it for a few years now, they have turned us into Malta in the Seventies - we have the outward emblems of a functioning constitutional monarchy, but all the checks and balances have gone. That's why the faintheartedness of the Tory platform is neither here nor there. What's necessary on Monday is for the Liberals to lose. If, through some freak combination of factors, the Bloc wound up forming the government, a party that wants to secede from the nation would be less damaging to the country than a party that wants to swallow the nation. On Monday, it's important for the health of our democracy to demonstrate that Canadians can still muster the will to change governments.
STEYNONLINE January 19th 2006
Stephen Harper makes a few mild observations on the political realities of the Liberal state and everyone recoils in horror: by pointing out the "politicization" of the courts, the civil service, etc, it's Scary Stephen who's "politicizing them". My old comrade Andrew Coyne has chapter and verse on the absurdities of this: it's ridiculous to get outraged over statements of the obvious - since 1993, 89% of all political donations by federal judicial appointees in Ontario have gone to the Liberals but we're supposed to pretend it's a scrupulously non-partisan bench.
Meanwhile, the strikingly similar formulations of the press criticism of Harper's remarks tend to confirm them: why, you'd almost think they were re-typing Grit war-room e-mails. And why wouldn't they? The over-regulated Canadian media offers limited job promotion opportunities except to waft upwards into Liberal patronage positions (as my National Post colleague Anne Dawson has just done). Consider, for example, the curious attitude of CTV News to its own polls: On Tuesday night, it was 42-24 to the Tories - the biggest lead of the campaign - and ol' Lloyd buried it. Well, maybe it was one of them there "rogue polls". But on Wednesday it was 41-25 - and they buried it again. I guess Harper should be grateful Lloyd didn't go with "Tory lead plummets in poll shock!" CTV seem to have adopted a Lady Bracknell attitude to their polling: to produce one massive Tory lead may be regarded as a misfortune, to produce two looks like carelessness. (The Western Standard's riposte to CanWest's Don Martin, complete with audio of his phone messages, makes a similar point, and with macho back-room Liberal fellatial banter, too!)
The scandal isn't Harper drawing attention to the politicization but the unwillingness of the thoroughly politicized organs of the Trudeaupian state to see it. Consider this small item: the Liberal Party solicits donations from the Privy Council Office employees at the office. That's merely the gazillionth tiny sign that the party no longer understands the codes and conventions by which the Westminster system operates. I'm not arguing that, in their elision of the line between party and state, the Grits have turned us into the Soviet Union. But, as I've put it for a few years now, they have turned us into Malta in the Seventies - we have the outward emblems of a functioning constitutional monarchy, but all the checks and balances have gone. That's why the faintheartedness of the Tory platform is neither here nor there. What's necessary on Monday is for the Liberals to lose. If, through some freak combination of factors, the Bloc wound up forming the government, a party that wants to secede from the nation would be less damaging to the country than a party that wants to swallow the nation. On Monday, it's important for the health of our democracy to demonstrate that Canadians can still muster the will to change governments.
STEYNONLINE January 19th 2006