Oh, The Irony
September 24th, 2009
Greg Weston was one of the journalists in the Parliamentary Gallery who got his nose particularly out of joint with the PMO when it got invaded by Conservatives. He has since calmed somewhat and seems to be offering fairer reportage. Today, he offers up a tidbit I never heard before, but which gave me a good laugh:
"Stop wasting my money!"
It has been almost 30 years since a flock of geese flying across Canadian television screens caused a national flap over taxpayers’ money being used for partisan political propaganda…
Liberal MP Bob Rae, then a member of the NDP, said at the time: “I will never be able to look at Canada geese in the same way again. I’ll see them as Liberals in disguise.”
Turns out Bob Rae was the Liberal in disguise, who knew?
Besides providing an easy swipe at Bob Rae, Weston makes an error of, if not fact then certainly, content. Writing of the Conservative’s “we’re spending your money so fast we hardly have time to count it,” ads. Here’s what he wrote:
Even right-wing commentator Gerry Nicholls decried the campaign as “an abuse of tax dollars,” describing the ads as “clearly partisan, clearly Conservative propaganda.”
Entirely true, Gerry Nicholls has been critical of these ads,. However, the way Weston writes this it suggests Nicholls is an otherwise compliant Conservative who never criticizes the Harper Tories, and that’s simply not the fact. In fact my friend Gerry is often criticized for speaking out against the Conservatives.
Foie gras anyone?