This Week in Alberta - Lingere Party!

The Doug Elniski saga is just so good, it's worthy of a second post.

As reported earlier this week, Tory backbencher Doug Elniski got into some trouble for blog and twitter postings where, among other things, he advises young girls:

"Men are attracted to smiles, so smile and don't give me that 'treated equal' stuff, if you want Equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks."

This has prompted some to attack him as being sexist, to which Elniski has responded (and I am not making this up):

"If I were sexist I think I would certainly know about it by now."

This is eerily familiar to comments made by world famous economist Stephen Harper, just a week before the stock market crashed last fall:

“My own belief is if we were gong to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.”

I guess the good news for Elniski in all this is that if voters were going to punish him for his comments, they certainly would have voted him out by now...


Still, Elniski has deleted his blog, and purged his twitter archives...except that...well...I'll let the Journal's Graham Thompson fill you in:

Elniski has no doubt learned a political lesson from it, but he apparently has yet to learn the dangers of Twitter. As of Wednesday afternoon, he still had a Twitter posting from June 7 that said "lingere is always good." Whoever is screening his postings might want to take a look at that one for spelling, if nothing else. Journalists who noticed it and have reported on it assume he meant "lingerie, " but we haven't had a chance to ask him about it. His staff says he's not taking our calls. Taken on its own, a four-word declaration in favour of women's undergarments might not be overtly sexist, but it is overtly odd.

You have to wonder why, after all the complaints about sexism levelled at Elniski this week, he would leave that Twitter posting up. You also have to wonder why he made the posting in the first place.

In Other News...

Avalon Roberts knocks off Corey Hogan to take the Calgary Glenmore nomination for the Alberta Liberals. I would have liked to see Corey take this one, since he's exactly what the ALP needs right now, but Avalon is an experienced candidate and one of the nicest people in the Liberal Party, so I wish her all the best in the by election.

How to Offend in 140 Characters or Less

The latest out of Alberta...

A Tory MLA is under fire for online comments in which he advises girls to smile to attract men, scolds them for seeking equality and alerts his Twitter followers to a bikini car wash where "girls look cold."

Edmonton-Calder MLA Doug Elniski conceded Monday that his comments, posted June 13 on his blog and through Twitter, were "inappropriate" and "over the line."

In an entry that began with reflections on junior high school graduations, Elniski posted this advice to girls: "Men are attracted to smiles, so smile and don't give me that 'treated equal' stuff, if you want Equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks." [ed note: Worst. Commencement Speech. Ever.]

He also wrote: "There is nothing a man wants less than a woman scowling because he thinks he is going to get sh--for something and has no idea what."

On the same day, Elniski posted the following Twitter comment: "bikini car wash 82 129 ave girls look cold (...)"

[...]

Tom Olsen, a spokesman for Premier Ed Stelmach, said the premier isn't considering disciplinary action against the rookie backbencher, whose previous careers were in several fields, including safety management, forestry work and consulting.

Some gay-rights advocates have also taken issue with Elniski's Twitter posts from the June 13 Edmonton gay pride parade. The MLA noted he was "surrounded by bumping and grinding lesbians." He also apologized for that comment, adding that he thought the parade was a great event.

Furor over Elniski's online writings comes less than a week after Finance Minister Iris Evans garnered national attention for suggesting that two-income parents weren't caring for their children properly.