At Home in Hespeler

It’s a classic bully maneuver: taking the victims arm and punching the victim with his own hand, meanwhile saying, “why are you punching yourself?” As the middle boy of 3, I’ve been both victim and aggressor in this classic game of making you feel bad about yourself, all the while being able to legitimately say, “I never touched him.”

Last week I used the “punching yourself” motif to describe NDP leader Thomas Muclair, because it seemed apt. Why wasn’t that bully Stephen Harper beating up on Muclair, Warren Kinsella asked, so I answered.

Never beat on someone who’s beating on himself I suggested:

Perhaps they feel it’s better to let Muclair define himself his own image…

Just a few days later, that same Warren Kinsella has read, digested and seemingly agreed with me:

A few days ago, this writer questioned the whereabouts of the Conservative party’s anti-Mulcair attack ads…

Stephen Harper, looking down at his opponent as he hollers away on an Ottawa street corner, knows the answer.

“We don’t need any ads to scare voters away from this guy,” you can picture Harper musing. “He’s doing that all on his own.”

You don’t have to be Stephen Harper to know the answer, you just have to read the same people Stephen Harper reads.

The Media Following My Lead. Stephen Harper, Thomas Muclair, Warren Kinsella

Earlier in the week Warren Kinsella penned a piece in Sun Media suggesting it was strange the Big mean Stephen Harper Conservatives have not run a negative ad on new NDP leader Thomas Muclair… yet:

So where, in all of this, is the Conservative attack on their real enemy, Thomas Mulcair?

It’s not like they don’t have a reason to attack. According to the latest national polls, the Conservatives are no longer merely tied with the NDP. For the first time ever, the New Democrats actually are ahead of Stephen Harper’s party.

But still, the Cons do not attack. Apart from a poorly conceived swing at Mulcair’s caucus, only silence emanates from the Harper war room. No one knows why. Here’s one theory: With the Liberals, all of the Conservative attacks were centred on character, not policy. The Tory ads took something that was personal to a succession of Grit leaders, and made it political. But with Thomas Mulcair? Nothing.

It is all very odd. The Cons have nothing to fear from the third-place Libs, yet attack; from the Dippers, there is now much to worry about, but they do nothing. Why the change in strategy? The likeliest explanation is the Tory war room has yet to settle on a character-based attack that will work. Until then, Mulcair should enjoy his holiday from pain. It’s pleasant. But it isn’t going to last.

The attack is coming.

But perhaps the “Tory war room,” has made an other assessment, that once Canadians get a good look at Thomas Muclair, they won’t like what they see. Perhaps they feel it’s better to let Muclair define himself his own image:

What’s more interesting is Mulcair’s response. On Tuesday, he told Postmedia News the premiers of Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan (and presumably everybody else, including that notorious Stephen Harper sycophant, Stephane Dion) are merely acting as Harper’s “messengers,” that he (Mulcair) is right, they’re wrong, and he won’t respond to mere premiers since his fight is with Harper.

That prompted Paul Wells of Macleans.ca to humourously observe the idea of premiers Wall, Clark and especially Redford waiting by the “Harperphone” for instructions could only come from Mulcair, who believes anyone who disagrees with him must be part of a conspiracy. (If Mulcair starts twirling ball bearings and musing about who stole his quart of strawberries, run!)

Why get accused of being mean when half the political establishment is accusing your opponent of being out of touch?

NDP, Silly Politicians Lorrie Goldstein, Stephen Harper, Thomas Muclair, Warren Kinsella

The party base understood in 2006 and Canadian citizens are understanding now. Ignatieff’s supporters didn’t do their homework. They didn’t read his books. They contented themselves with his ability to navigate the cocktail circuit.”
“Some of them are enraged today. I hear: ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us about him?'”
“We told you, loud and clear. You didn’t listen.’

and

 “But they (party members) didn’t accept the 26 per cent (of the popular vote in the last election). Now we’re at 23.”

It’s worth saying that it’s not that they didn’t try and read his books but, like me, they picked up The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, and slept like a baby for two weeks, unable to keep their poor weary eyes open for more than a page and a half of his pompous drivel.

 Then the front thrusts:

Ross Rebagliati, former Olympic snowboarder with the Clitonesque excuses, now running for the Liberal party in  Okanagan-Coquihalla BC, gives an interview to McLeans:

McL: …did the Liberals approach you, or did you approach them?
RR: They approached me. It came up over lunch and I thought about it for a few minutes, and by the end of the meal, I had decided to do it.

RR:… We’re sending our Canadian soldiers overseas to create a democracy in a foreign land, and a lot of them are paying the ultimate price. And we can’t even bring ourselves to vote here, when we have that right and privilege? To me, that’s unacceptable.
McL: Have you been a regular voter?
RR: No I haven’t.

McL: Are there other politicians you admire?
RR: Sure, Trudeau… he had a cool car and all the girls liked him.

McL: What will you be doing during the Olympics this February?
RR: I’ll be in both Whistler and Vancouver… but I don’t have a single ticket. But as far as I’m concerned I’m just going to flash my gold medal. (Note: he’s entitled to his entitlements).

McL: Are you in favour of legalization?
RR: I’m not really going to go there right now. I think the media obviously has a big opportunity to corner me as a one-issue guy, but I don’t want to be that guy.

McL:…What’s your campaign theme song going to be?
RR: I like the Bob Marley song Get Up, Stand Up.

When your star candidates are this good, what can go wrong?

Silly Liberals, Uncategorized Janine Krieber, Liberal Party, Michael Ignatieff, Parliament Pub, Ross Rebagliati, Stephane Dion, Warren Kinsella

J. Edgar Hoover had a file too. Here’s a hard and fast rule of 1930-60’s America, don’t piss of J. Edgar or you’ll find yourself with a file. Fast forward to Canada, 2009, and discover another bureaucrat who keeps files: Canadian Human Rights commissioner Jennifer Lynch:

Please, please, look. We have experienced 16 months of invective hurled at us, and at any time when anybody has tried to speak up and correct misinformation, gross distortions, caricaturizations,[sic] then the very next day there’s been some full-frontal assault through the blogs, through mainstream media. I have a file. I’m sure I have 1,200, certainly several hundred of these things.

Twelve-hundred files. On whom? may we ask. Bloggers who speak ill of your institution? Ezra Levant? Mark Steyn? No doubt all of the above, but here’s a question for you Jennifer, do you have a file on Warren Kinsella, defender of the HRC’s? But of course, they’re her files, and she being a mere public servant, none of my business.

Of course, Ms. Lynch says so much more, including defending her job:

I’m a public servant responsible for giving effect to the principle that ‘individuals should have the right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,’ and I’m going to do it.

I always like to pull out the old UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, when people like Jennifer Lynch want to debate these things always seems like a good place to start. Oh, and speaking of starting, here’s something from the second paragraph of the Preamble, you don’t get much more basic human rights than that which appears in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human rights:

…the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief

I searched in vain, by the way, for any reference to the “right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,” whatever that actually means.

At the end of the day, that’s what this fight is about, everybody’s right to speak and think freely, without intimidation from some government lackey, whether in the form of hauling your sorry self before a tribunal, or just keeping a file on you.

free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, human rights, Jacobian Piece of Impertinence, pimply minions of bureaucracy Ezra Levant, free speech, Hoover, HRC, Human Rights Commisions, J. Edgar Hoover, Jennifer Lynch, Mark Steyn, UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Warren Kinsella

The Blue Blogging Soapbox Blogging Tories Site of the Week for the week of April 19, 2009 is:

The Surly Beaver

Being the Adventures of a Canadian on the Far Side of the Pond

Blogging Tories Site of the Week Daimnation, Surly Beaver, Warren Kinsella