Harper takes another page from Dubya's book

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Harper says he's finished with Ottawa press corps

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he'll no longer give news conferences for the national media, after a dispute led a number of journalists to walk away from an event when he refused to take their questions.

Speaking to A-Channel in London, Ont., Harper said "unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government."

"They don't ask questions at my press conferences now. We'll just take the message out on the road. There's lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing."

Since becoming prime minister in January, Harper has had a testy relationship with the national media in Ottawa. His staff has tried to manage news conferences by saying they will decide which reporters get to ask questions.

The press gallery has refused to play by those rules. "We can't accept that the Prime Minister's Office would decide who gets to ask questions," Yves Malo, a TVA reporter and president of the press gallery, told CP on Tuesday. "Does that mean that when there's a crisis they'll only call upon journalists they expect softball questions from?"

Well duh.

Where's H.L. Mencken when you need him?

[Hux]

We should start a master list....

Another recent example was the appearance of black SUV's in the PM's motorcade.

But for someone with reputedly sharp political antennae, Stephen Harper

is moving incautiously. The soft and soothing centrist rhetoric of the

election campaign has been replaced by deeper conservative theology. On

Kyoto, on military solutions, on gun amnesties, he is beginning to sound

like the rawer conservative he used to be. His unrelenting "my way or

the doorway" attitude betrays a visceral righteousness so common to the

Bush Republicans.

(good article)

The Harper Conservatives are swimming against the tide

LAWRENCE MARTIN

Globe and Mail

The narratives of nations change. In the United States, conservative

ideology as embodied by George W. Bush is under siege. In Latin America,

the trend line is much the same. The region may not be making the big

swerve left as some claim, but it sure as blazes and Bolivia isn't going

the other way.

One of the few places where the hemispheric tendency is being bucked is

in our very own liberal bastion. Stephen Harper's bold conservatism

tilts against the windmills.

His timing is off, though. Brian Mulroney was elected in 1984 when the

conservative revolutions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were in

full sway. Mr. Harper enters the fray when such movements are in

distress or retreat. He comes along when the ascendant issue of our

time, climate crisis, is cornered by the left and when the other

cardinal cause, Iraq/terrorism, is mishandled by the right.

Herein lies the big hope of progressives. That the Harper Conservatives

find themselves on the wrong side of history; that they become a lonely

outpost of the right on two continents; that their Prime Minister gets

caught up in Mr. Bush's grim tides, imprinted with the wrong ideological

stamp on policies ranging from global warming (where he is already in

trouble) to war and peace.

Mr. Harper need not worry about Latin America too much. The region is

hardly a major exporter of trends. But the broad shift over the past

decade there is hardly a fit for his urges, nor is the political trend

in today's America.

In the U.S., the progressives are being recharged by none other than Al

Gore. Suddenly, the former vice-president, just as "electrifying" as he

used to be, is back in vogue. His big green movie, An Inconvenient

Truth, is screening this week, he's featured in the hot magazines, and

he's now being touted as the Democrat who can save America from Hillary

or a new George. In his spare time, he takes ecological swipes at Mr.

Harper for sucking up to Big Oil and jumping off the Kyoto bandwagon.

A Gore comeback? It sounds far-fetched, but there was another man who

had an election stolen from him and came back eight years later and won.

Name? Richard Nixon.

On the big issues, Mr. Gore is well-positioned. He was about two decades

out in front of everybody else on the environment. On Iraq, he was

clear. He said no go from the get-go. While Hillary Clinton has become

so politicized that none of her beliefs appear to be more than skin

deep, Mr. Gore, who hasn't ruled out a challenge, is rooted in

principle. Americans love a comeback story. He could pick up where

Howard Dean screamed off.

It was while he was at the Cannes festival that Mr. Gore fired his shot

at Mr. Harper, saying he was a slave to the interests of the oil sands

and other big-time polluters. That was preceded by a warning from Bill

Clinton, who said that, as a cure for wait times, Canadians must avoid

the "nightmare" of private health insurance as practised in the United

States.

Mr. Harper isn't guilty on either count. On health care, while he might

wish to dip deeply into privatization, public opinion isn't going to let

him.

His environment policy can hardly be judged a loser until we know what

it is. "Don't worry," one of his friends told me. "I'm sure he'll find a

way to be nicer to

reptiles."

But for someone with reputedly sharp political antennae, Stephen Harper

is moving incautiously. The soft and soothing centrist rhetoric of the

election campaign has been replaced by deeper conservative theology. On

Kyoto, on military solutions, on gun amnesties, he is beginning to sound

like the rawer conservative he used to be. His unrelenting "my way or

the doorway" attitude betrays a visceral righteousness so common to the

Bush Republicans.

To go in that direction when the issues are green, not black and white,

when his Republican brethren have plummeted in esteem, when the

hemisphere is tilting in the other direction, when his own country is of

a different tradition, is bold indeed.

He might be more mindful of the trends. He might not like them but, as

he surely realizes, shift happens.

Edited May 25, 2006 by Guest

[ollie]

Sadly, as long as the CPC trumpets their "all Liberals are crooks" message, no one actually pays attention to what is going on. The Liberal leadership convention can't come soon enough!

[AD]

Another recent example was the appearance of black SUV's in the PM's motorcade.

Those fucking SUVs almost ran me over a week ago downtown!! And a big group of tourists too. The drivers must've all been Quebec taxi drivers in their previous jobs.

AD

[bouche]

So the media left in protest because Harper wouldn't answer questions and now Harper is saying that because they dissed him, he's not going to answer any questions?

I don't get it.