Words
I love the newspaper I write for. I frequently disagree with the paper's editorial positions, and they with mine, but we are all friends. They publish me every day online, and less often in the paper version. I am their pet communist.
They even published me way back when the former proprietor, Lord Black of Minimum Security, said he would use his media magnate might to make life unpleasant for my former boss, Jean Chretien. When he got through with Mr. Chretien, said Lord Black, there wouldn't be enough to fit through "an eye-dropper." Didn't quite work out that way, did it? Nope.
Anyway, I've kept a dignified silence throughout this terrible, awful, scandalous scandal about a CBC journalist supposedly suggesting questions to Liberal MPs to throw at the much-missed Brian Mulroney at the Ethics Committee thing. But today's Post editorial has given me a case of the vapours, and I can remain silent no longer.
Here's a lengthy snippet from a book I wrote back in 2001 or so, called Kicking Ass. The Post very favourably reviewed it, at the time. And no one has ever, ever repudiated what I provide to you, below, as a public service.
Read the Post editorial, then read the snippet. It's ironic, you might say.
...
"...To the Opposition and Conrad Black's Post, it did not matter that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police determined similarly, following conflict of interest complaints by the leaders of Canada’s two conservative parties, the Tories and the Alliance. (In a release, the RCMP stated that there were no grounds for “pursuing a criminal investigation into this matter.”) Finally, and tellingly, public opinion didn’t seem to amount to much, either: a large Ipsos-Reid survey, conducted after the election and at the height of the supposed scandal, found that more than 80 per cent of Canadians wanted the Opposition parties to “move on.” They did not, and they would not.
“Shawinigate” was a term used repeatedly by the Post and Chrétien’s political opponents. Unimaginative politicos always append the word “gate” to some noun, hoping that it will become synonymous with political wrongdoing. Shawinigate also became, among other things, an interesting case study in oppo, demonstrating how opposition research and quick response could be effective and, sometimes, ineffective.
Typically, on a political campaign, oppo and quick-response teams work in tandem. Opposition research is done, and the results are handed over to the quick-response unit to be communicated. By the end of the 1990s, oppo and “QR” were done in this way by every political party extant. But in Shawinigate, it was all done somewhat differently.
For starters, the vast bulk of the oppo done in the so-called Shawinigan scandal was conducted by a newspaper, the National Post. In its editorials, but also in its “straight” news reporting, the Post was unafraid to appear shamelessly partisan and anti-Liberal. In years past, newspaper editors and reporters endeavoured to create the impression—publicly, at least—that they were keeping an open mind about the issues of the day. But the Post was uninterested in such niceties. In April 2001, for example, no less than its deputy editor, Martin Newland, gave an on-the-record interview to another publication, the far-right Report magazine, in which he baldly stated that a “conflict of interest” had, in actual fact, taken place involving the prime minister of Canada. Officials of the Liberal government, said Newland, streamed into the prime mini-ster’s riding “with buckets of cash, pouring it into every orifice [sic] that they could see...That’s not right.” To dispel any illusion about the Post’s partisan approach to reporting, Newland stated, “We do believe it is a violation of the [conflict of interest] code.” It did not matter to Newland, apparently, that the RCMP had concluded that there was no violation.
From the outset of the controversy, in or around 1999, the Post was determined to transform the inoffensive Quebec town of Shawinigan into something synonymous with the Watergate apartment complex. For months, Post reporter Andrew McIntosh (whose employer, it should be recalled, was suing the prime minister for denying him a lifetime barony) had been a veritable journalistic St. George, charging out to slay the twin-headed dragon of prime ministerial perfidy and misdeeds. To McIntosh’s frustration, no doubt, neither the Canadian public nor competing newspapers seemed to give a sweet damn. But the Post was undeterred, because, for most of the relevant period, it could count on Canada’s two conservative opposition parties, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives, to do its bidding.
Disgruntled former Alliance staffers would later tell Liberals that the Post usually supplied the Alliance, under the leadership of Preston Manning or, later, Stockwell Day, with advance notice of the stories McIntosh and others intended to publish about Shawinigate. In this way, the Official Opposition would have sufficient time to prepare the questions it intended to raise in the House of Commons. It also ensured that the Post’s hoped-for revelations would receive a parliamentary boost, giving stories with a short shelf-life another day or two on the public agenda. While some of the twists and turns in the Shawinigate story had been the product of actual research efforts by the Tories or the Alliance themselves, it was common knowledge that most of the Shawinigan-related oppo was being done by the Post. The quick-response part of the formula, then, became the responsibility of the Post’s conservative political allies. (Ironically, the Opposition politician who came to be seen as the most effective was the Tories’ Joe Clark, leading only a dozen MPs in the House of Commons; Official Opposition leader Stockwell Day, meanwhile, never seemed to recover from the pounding the Grits gave him during the election campaign.)...."
They even published me way back when the former proprietor, Lord Black of Minimum Security, said he would use his media magnate might to make life unpleasant for my former boss, Jean Chretien. When he got through with Mr. Chretien, said Lord Black, there wouldn't be enough to fit through "an eye-dropper." Didn't quite work out that way, did it? Nope.
Anyway, I've kept a dignified silence throughout this terrible, awful, scandalous scandal about a CBC journalist supposedly suggesting questions to Liberal MPs to throw at the much-missed Brian Mulroney at the Ethics Committee thing. But today's Post editorial has given me a case of the vapours, and I can remain silent no longer.
Here's a lengthy snippet from a book I wrote back in 2001 or so, called Kicking Ass. The Post very favourably reviewed it, at the time. And no one has ever, ever repudiated what I provide to you, below, as a public service.
Read the Post editorial, then read the snippet. It's ironic, you might say.
"...To the Opposition and Conrad Black's Post, it did not matter that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police determined similarly, following conflict of interest complaints by the leaders of Canada’s two conservative parties, the Tories and the Alliance. (In a release, the RCMP stated that there were no grounds for “pursuing a criminal investigation into this matter.”) Finally, and tellingly, public opinion didn’t seem to amount to much, either: a large Ipsos-Reid survey, conducted after the election and at the height of the supposed scandal, found that more than 80 per cent of Canadians wanted the Opposition parties to “move on.” They did not, and they would not.
“Shawinigate” was a term used repeatedly by the Post and Chrétien’s political opponents. Unimaginative politicos always append the word “gate” to some noun, hoping that it will become synonymous with political wrongdoing. Shawinigate also became, among other things, an interesting case study in oppo, demonstrating how opposition research and quick response could be effective and, sometimes, ineffective.
Typically, on a political campaign, oppo and quick-response teams work in tandem. Opposition research is done, and the results are handed over to the quick-response unit to be communicated. By the end of the 1990s, oppo and “QR” were done in this way by every political party extant. But in Shawinigate, it was all done somewhat differently.
For starters, the vast bulk of the oppo done in the so-called Shawinigan scandal was conducted by a newspaper, the National Post. In its editorials, but also in its “straight” news reporting, the Post was unafraid to appear shamelessly partisan and anti-Liberal. In years past, newspaper editors and reporters endeavoured to create the impression—publicly, at least—that they were keeping an open mind about the issues of the day. But the Post was uninterested in such niceties. In April 2001, for example, no less than its deputy editor, Martin Newland, gave an on-the-record interview to another publication, the far-right Report magazine, in which he baldly stated that a “conflict of interest” had, in actual fact, taken place involving the prime minister of Canada. Officials of the Liberal government, said Newland, streamed into the prime mini-ster’s riding “with buckets of cash, pouring it into every orifice [sic] that they could see...That’s not right.” To dispel any illusion about the Post’s partisan approach to reporting, Newland stated, “We do believe it is a violation of the [conflict of interest] code.” It did not matter to Newland, apparently, that the RCMP had concluded that there was no violation.
From the outset of the controversy, in or around 1999, the Post was determined to transform the inoffensive Quebec town of Shawinigan into something synonymous with the Watergate apartment complex. For months, Post reporter Andrew McIntosh (whose employer, it should be recalled, was suing the prime minister for denying him a lifetime barony) had been a veritable journalistic St. George, charging out to slay the twin-headed dragon of prime ministerial perfidy and misdeeds. To McIntosh’s frustration, no doubt, neither the Canadian public nor competing newspapers seemed to give a sweet damn. But the Post was undeterred, because, for most of the relevant period, it could count on Canada’s two conservative opposition parties, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives, to do its bidding.
Disgruntled former Alliance staffers would later tell Liberals that the Post usually supplied the Alliance, under the leadership of Preston Manning or, later, Stockwell Day, with advance notice of the stories McIntosh and others intended to publish about Shawinigate. In this way, the Official Opposition would have sufficient time to prepare the questions it intended to raise in the House of Commons. It also ensured that the Post’s hoped-for revelations would receive a parliamentary boost, giving stories with a short shelf-life another day or two on the public agenda. While some of the twists and turns in the Shawinigate story had been the product of actual research efforts by the Tories or the Alliance themselves, it was common knowledge that most of the Shawinigan-related oppo was being done by the Post. The quick-response part of the formula, then, became the responsibility of the Post’s conservative political allies. (Ironically, the Opposition politician who came to be seen as the most effective was the Tories’ Joe Clark, leading only a dozen MPs in the House of Commons; Official Opposition leader Stockwell Day, meanwhile, never seemed to recover from the pounding the Grits gave him during the election campaign.)...."