The Friendly Columnist
I guess the Liberal leadership candidates don't see the need to attack each other, given that Jeffrey Simpson is doing such a good job of it.
Simpson followed up yesterday's attack on Bob Rae with a scathing piece on Michael Ignatieff today. Among his critiques from the past two days:
"There being a list of candidates with serious deficiencies..."
"Mr. Ignatieff has the fewest Canadian scars by virtue of having fought the fewest battles in his own country, a fact that, in other countries would almost automatically disqualify anyone from serious leadership ambition"
"What's obvious is the paucity of endorsements of Mr. Rae by prominent Ontario federal Liberals"
"Although Mr. Ignatieff insists he always considered himself a Canadian, it was hard to discern that while he lived in the United States."
"Mr. Rae is wheel-spinning, maybe dying politically"
Ouch.
These two articles follow some of Simpson's recent writings, which have included:
"Watch those Liberal hobbits scurry about the leadership stage"
"Style, sure, but where's Mr. Kennedy's substance?"
"Ignatieff's unbearable lightness of absence"
Stay tuned for future Simpson profiles including:
"Dion's asinine ramblings"
"Martha Hall Findlay: Menace to Canada?"
"You can't spell Bevilacqua without evil"
"Ken Dryden nearly cost us the Summit Series"
Obviously Jeffrey Simpson is free to write what he pleases and a lot of his criticism has been valid. All I'll say is that it's a good thing Liberal leadership contenders can "take a punch". Lesser men might start whining about a media conspiracy...
Simpson followed up yesterday's attack on Bob Rae with a scathing piece on Michael Ignatieff today. Among his critiques from the past two days:
"There being a list of candidates with serious deficiencies..."
"Mr. Ignatieff has the fewest Canadian scars by virtue of having fought the fewest battles in his own country, a fact that, in other countries would almost automatically disqualify anyone from serious leadership ambition"
"What's obvious is the paucity of endorsements of Mr. Rae by prominent Ontario federal Liberals"
"Although Mr. Ignatieff insists he always considered himself a Canadian, it was hard to discern that while he lived in the United States."
"Mr. Rae is wheel-spinning, maybe dying politically"
Ouch.
These two articles follow some of Simpson's recent writings, which have included:
"Watch those Liberal hobbits scurry about the leadership stage"
"Style, sure, but where's Mr. Kennedy's substance?"
"Ignatieff's unbearable lightness of absence"
Stay tuned for future Simpson profiles including:
"Dion's asinine ramblings"
"Martha Hall Findlay: Menace to Canada?"
"You can't spell Bevilacqua without evil"
"Ken Dryden nearly cost us the Summit Series"
Obviously Jeffrey Simpson is free to write what he pleases and a lot of his criticism has been valid. All I'll say is that it's a good thing Liberal leadership contenders can "take a punch". Lesser men might start whining about a media conspiracy...
posted by calgarygrit at
3:29 p.m.
13 Comments:
"Another Dion? Wasn't Celine Enough?"
"The Kennedy Curse Continues:This Time, Canada Suffers."
"Do We Need Another Lousy PM Named Bennett?"
Upcoming Simpson articles.
By
nuna d. above, at 3:23 p.m.
I would hardly categorize Simpson's Globe editorial on Ignatieff as, "scathing".
By
Omar, at 4:06 p.m.
He's just bitter the Libs never gave him a Senate seat.
By
Jeff, at 8:12 p.m.
The Vast Rightwing Media Conspiracy (TM) revealed at last!
Great scoop, CG!
It is surprising that he goes out of his way to be so consistently nasty to so many candidates over the course of so many columns.
Ted
Cerberus
By
Ted Betts, at 10:48 p.m.
Perhaps there is only one person, in his humble estimation, who is truly worthy of the Liberal Party leadership -- might I suggest Jeffrey Simpson? Just a thought.
By
O'Dowd, at 11:19 p.m.
//You have to love Simpson. At least he seems to hate all of the candidates.//
You have to admit it is a pretty lame bunch of candidates.
The Liberal Party better hope Kennedy "grows" during the campaign.
I'm still waiting for one candidate to start the truth-telling...for example:
1) The Liberal government dropped the ball on Kyoto. Over 30% past the targets the Liberal government committed to with no viable plan.
2) The Kelowna Accord should not have been left to the dying days of a minority government. This after the Martin government turfed Chretien's aboriginal accountability measures.
3) The Liberal Party sent this country to war in Afghanistan, and now even half of Liberal MPs can manage to vote to endorse a decision a Liberal government made just a year ago.
4) No one has addressed the Chaoulli Supreme Court decision on the emerging right to private health care.
By
godot10, at 2:20 p.m.
Scathing?
There is no need to pull punches, but where Volpe is concearned, there is the matter of White Collar Crime.
Too crass? Too blunt? When vested interests of a drug cartel channel units of $5400 to politicos through four year old children, I call that a crime.
Especially as I have seen seniors who have 8 to 10 prescriptions on their dresser. There is no way any doctor can understand how all those costly medications interact.
The doctors and the drug companies are involved with what appears to be a co-operative rip-off of Canadians and our health care system.
We have all heard documenteries about excessive surgeries. Ceasarian births, for example, are far beyond normal required numbers. Multiply that by all the various elective surgeries that need not be done, but are done anyway.
White collar crime, run amok, is what it is.
Why not call a spade a spade. You know it and I know it, but it is just not fasionable to say so. Is that it? TG
By
TonyGuitar, at 3:42 p.m.
You know, some of these defences against the charge of media bias border on the childish.
That Jeffrey Simpson or anyone else engage in criticism of Liberals does not mean they're not liberal.
Charles Adler, Lorrie Goldstein, Michael Harris, and Greg Weston all seem pretty conservative in outlook to me. Yet they trash Harper when they feel he deserves it. Does that mean they're not conservative?
The charge is that the overwelming number of journalists and pundits with our big media are liberals. Because Jeffrey Simpson attacks Liberals doesn't mean he's not liberal.
What it does mean is that he gives the Liberals a hard time in a race he and the media would mock much louder if it was being conducted from across the aisle.
Media Bias 101, brough to you by the Cyber Menace. http://www.cybermenace.blogspot.com/ .
By
Dennis (Second Thots), at 6:57 p.m.
And, once again TCM, your definition is nonsense. A liberal media that attacks liberals harder than it does conservatives (as it did during the last election) isn't a liberal media at all... and a liberal media that ENDORSES Harper wasn't a friend of Paul Martin, full stop.
Sorry, but just because the media doesn't parrot conservative/republican talking points, that doesn't mean you can label it "liberal".
By
Demosthenes, at 3:42 a.m.
CG,
Haper was talking about the "news" reporters, not people who write opinion for a living.
Its when the CP throws in a few little snide remarks that people get pissed.
On another note, how many Canadians got the real story on the feud? Not many....
By
eastern capitalist, at 7:57 a.m.
Lois:
I'm afraid you haven't spent much time surfing around Liberal websites this weekend and are unfairly characterizing Conservative websites.
"none of the Liberal weblogs are". Hunh??
Well, I, for one, did here. Here's some more Liberal/liberal sites on the topic:
http://www.blevkog.blogspot.com/
http://mileslunn.blogspot.com/
http://redtory.blogspot.com/
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/
http://blackwolfsblog.blogspot.com/
http://myblahg.com
And that was just from my regular reading list a quick scan of Liblogs.
"all of the Conservative weblogs are talking about the terrorist suspect arrests"
Well, yes, but many many of these are using the arrests not so much to talk about security, but as an excuse and opportunity to exploit anti-Muslim bigotry and for anti-Liberal bashing.
Many have not and many recognize that this is indeed not a partisan issue, there are a lot of good conservative websites out there who choose not to be an echo chamber of the most radical element of the right.
(And in Calgary Grit's defence (not that he needs any at all), it is rare for him to post over the weekend. He has a healthy desire to live life a bit on the weekends and not spend it on the computer.)
There are those on the left and the right who use such events as this or the London terror bombing or 9/11 itself to polarize our citizenship. The moderates among us need to challenge them, on the left and the right (preferrably left challenging left and right challenging right), and push for a more unifying and consensus building voice on security.
Ted
Cerberus
By
Ted Betts, at 11:10 a.m.
CG et al,
I just watched Question Period... does anyone know where the Liberal caucus was today?
There were more empty seats in that caucus today than at a Joe Volpe school visit!
When all parties are represented in full force at QP, and our party can't even muster up a couple handfuls, what the heck is going on??
By
Forward Looking Canadian, at 3:28 p.m.
Demo, just for the record, you didn't deal with one thing I stated in my comments.
I believe the Globe and Mail endorsed the Conservatives by attacking Paul Martin. Some endorsement.
The media covered an election campaign in which Martin didn't start running until after Christmas. What do you want them to do, make things up?
As I stated originally, the defence against media bias is often childish. Yours was no exception, to say the least.
By
Dennis (Second Thots), at 1:26 p.m.
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