The triumph of the stupid
In search of scandal on a perfectly benign audiotape, Ottawa finally loses its head forever up its own backside.
The Toronto Star’s Chantal Hébert—who is not exactly unaware of the realities, if they can be so called, of political life in Ottawa—hears nothing but good things on Jasmine MacDonnell’s tape recorder: not just Lisa Raitt’s ambition to solve a problem, but “signs of intelligent life at the federal cabinet table and the trademarks of a promising ministerial activist.” Are we really supposed to believe the opposition caucuses haven’t discussed job losses in similarly self-centred terms? “If walls could talk,” says Hébert, “and by the standards they apply to Raitt, would Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton or Gilles Duceppe really have no cause to tender their resignations?”
The Calgary Herald’s Naomi Lakritz, however, is four different kinds of shocked and appalled at Raitt’s careerism, and demands her head on a pike—because sure, it was a private conversation, but we expect more of our Cabinet ministers, don’t we? (Pause here for passing tumbleweed.) The most astonishing thing, however, is that Lakritz actually tries to use this ridiculous non-story to promote newspaper reporters, as opposed to those awful bloggers, as essential pillars of Canadian society. If this circus says anything at all about the media, it’s something very, very bad.
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