‘Time may be running out for 22 Minutes’.
We can only hope. What a loser of a show.
Archive of posts filed under the MSM bias category.
When one of them loses a nose or ear…
That’s the day I’ll worry about whether or not Afghan soldiers tortured Afghan detainees. (H/T Maz2)
And where exactly does Michael Ignatieff stand on torture?
In fact where is Michael Ignatieff in this “first parliamentary clash of its kind in 90 years”???
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Related
Peter Worthington has an excellent column in today’s Sun and I’ll give NNW a well deserved H/T for it – Afghan prisoners not Canada’s issue. The whole thing is well worth the read but I’ll highlight some of the more salient points:
…There is no suggestion that Canadian troops in Afghanistan have behaved badly towards captured Taliban insurgents who were trying to kill them.
The issue is whether these prisoners were mistreated after they were turned over to Afghan authorities, and whether Canadian authorities knew they would be abused.
That an inquiry looms is in great part the fault of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and possibly Defence Minister Peter MacKay, and even a batch of senior officers.
When reports by diplomat Richard Colvin surfaced that the Afghans might be abusing or torturing — or even releasing — prisoners, instead of denying knowledge, or maligning the messenger, or equivocating, the PM (and others) might have defused criticism by simply pointing out Canada’s main priority is how Canadian soldiers treat prisoners, not how Afghanis treat one another.
We are not in Afghanistan as colonizers, nor as conquerors. We have neither the interest nor the intention of staying there. We are there to help the existing government. We are not there to run the country, or to dictate how the country should be run.
Yes, we hope to have some influence on how democracy works, and to lead by example on how people should be treated — or not treated. But we Canadians are temporary “guests” in Afghanistan, and are not there to dramatically alter the culture….
( . . . )
…If the PM and others had taken this route, and given this sort of explanation instead of deny, deny, deny, it’s difficult seeing any responsible Canadian getting upset.
We’ve lost 140 Canadians to Taliban violence, and maybe 600 who’ve been wounded, some with life-altering injuries.
In fact, it might even have been acceptable if the PM, when asked about the fate of prisoners turned over to Afghan mercies, had used the occasion to paraphrase Rhett Butler in the classic movie Gone With the Wind: “Frankly, folks, we don’t give a damn.”
Nor do Canadians give a damn.
Well I might disagree with that last statement. Opposition parties and liberal media that are trying to pin a pseudo-scandal on this Government might care. But Canadians who are worrying about their jobs? Not very likely.
Update:
Ignatieff’s Dishonourable Intentions – The Iceman:
…Iggy takes off, his own MPs force would could be interpreted as a motion of non confidence in our minority Parliament, and we are to believe that this is a coincidence? Either Iggy didn’t want his fingerprints on the candlestick, or he has no control over his caucus…
Political Stalemate – Advantage Harper
Even though today’s EKOS poll shows a slight increase for the Conservatives (and where are you *Kady*?), I think we are in for a long period of more of the same in the political arena.
Angelo Persichilli and Peter Worthington have both recently alluded to the fact that ever since the right has been united it will be difficult for the Liberals to unseat the Conservatives. They will have to focus on trying to pull support away from soft NDP voters, which may explain the constant focus on mud-flinging pseudo-scandals and arcane issues like Afghan detainees.
Even some of the Liberal party’s strongest media supporters are now referring to the Conservatives as “the default government party.” (Warning: Traversty alert!)
Worthington concludes that we should all just relax and enjoy the ride because “Stephen Harper is likely to be around for quite a while.”
And that’s a good thing.
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Update
Kady is on it – EKOS of the Week: Mind the (4.2) gap, Liberals.
Canada produces a rare economic hat trick- Jan Bryan, Gazette
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Saturday Update
Tories lose some ground, but Grits fail to capitalize – Vancouver Sun
Liberals aren’t doing their job: Travers
I always hesitate to link to a Jim Travers column because I believe it encourages him to continue on his mission to disparage the Conservatives and also probably validates Roy MacGregor’s theory of lazy journalism.
However if you peel away the layers of hate, contempt and barely concealed (and all too common) murder metaphors in Traver’s piece today, They used to behead kings what Harper is doing [sic*], you begin to see that he is extremely frustrated with the opposition:
…For opposition parties, there’s a catch in that apparent humiliation: It serves Harper surprisingly well. Conservatives would almost certainly consider censure a loss of confidence, plunging the country into an election fought, at least in part, over the red herring issue of support for the troops.
Opposition parties don’t want to go into a campaign defending their patriotism. So it’s extremely unlikely that an NDP effort to reinforce Parliament’s supremacy, or a less well-known, lone-wolf effort by one Liberal MP, will gain the needed traction.
In one way, that’s a shame. A loss of Commons confidence is the appropriate response when a prime minister tries to seize powers that once belonged to monarchs.
In another, it’s simply pragmatic. Even if the government falls over disregard for democratic principle, the central election issues will be leadership, jobs and the economy. On those, wobbly Liberals are in no hurry to test their strength…
Translation: The Liberals are incompetent cowards. And perhaps a bit self-serving?
Travers closes by suggesting that if the Opposition parties don’t get rid of the Harper government then they are neglecting their democratic duty by not representing their constituents:
…By ducking the responsibility to hold Harper accountable for what happened in Afghanistan on his watch, Parliament is allowing the Prime Minister to drift that much further beyond its oversight, discipline and control.
So what we have here is a lefty journalist chewing out the Liberal party for backing down from their job of holding the Prime Minister accountable.
I think I can suggest a Facebook site where Travers can vent some of his frustration: Canadians Against Liberals Not Doing Their Job.
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Note:
*When I first started writing this post around 7 am this morning the headline at the Star was “Once upon a time, they beheaded kings for acting like this”. We’ll see how many times it changes today.
Noon headline update: I see they’ve at least corrected the grammatical error and added the word ‘for’.
Related
Memories of beheading threats past.
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Update:
Don’t forget that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be answering your questions on Youtube tonight (Tuesday) at 7 pm Eastern.
Oliver Watch
Anyone tuning into CTV’s Question Period today might be confused if they heard Craig Oliver talk about ‘MP’ Rahim Jaffer.
I cannot find Jaffer’s name among this list of current MPs at the Parliament website, and yet Craig Oliver made the following statement (at the 06:48 mark):
“…It’s not just another MP, is it Mr. Kinsella? It’s an MP who’s married to a Cabinet Minister and if we don’t know the details of the plea bargain, then doesn’t that allow people to say the system gave him a break and it shouldn’t have because of his political connections whether it’s true or not?”
Warren Kinsella did not bother to correct him.
However NDP National Director Brad Lavigne set the record straight at 8:00 mark and good for him.
So did Craig Oliver deliberately mislead viewers or was it a mistake? (H/T Sammy)
In any case I think that CTV needs to issue a formal correction and apology.
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Related:
Don’t blame judge for Jaffer’s slap on wrist, says MP Tilson – Hill Times:
…Because of the controversy, Mr. Bentley assigned his chief Crown prosecutor, deputy attorney general John Ayre to review the decision of the Orangeville prosecutor, but a spokesman for Mr. Bentley said two days later that Mr. Ayre “has reviewed the case and is entirely confident that the Crown acted properly and in keeping with the proper administration of justice.”
The Criminal Law Society at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto describes Judge Maund as a 30-year veteran of the criminal courts, including work as a defence lawyer and a Crown attorney. Coincidentally, he was scheduled to address student members of the Osgoode Hall society the afternoon of the day he sentenced Mr. Jaffer. “He has seen it all, from drug busts to domestic violence to driver over .80 and he’s happy to speak candidly about how he got to the bench, what motivated him to become a judge, what works in the courtroom, and what shortcomings he sees in the justice system,” the society’s notice of the speech said.
Mr. Tilson said sources within the Orangeville courthouse have told him police made mistakes either before or after they charged Mr. Jaffer. “People I know in the court system, the courthouse, have said the police maybe made some errors,” Mr. Tilson said…
So the case has been reviewed and the decision is final. Therefore why are the opposition parties and their media cronies flogging this dead horse?
Because they’re desperate.
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Tuesday Update
Not Caesar’s wife – Globe:
…With holders of elected office, the old proverb that “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion” has some application – but surely Mr. Jaffer, who is the spouse of a federal cabinet minister, Helena Guergis, the Minister of State for the Status of Women, is, like other Canadians, entitled to the presumption of innocence, until proven guilty of a crime...
Opposition-MSM lynch mob
Although I agree that the optics of the Rahim Jaffer case are not great, Christie Blatchford gives us a bit of a reality check in this morning’s Globe – Jaffer being painted as guilty shows the real double standard.
Christie drills down to the essence of the story in her own imitable way:
…Is there a double standard at work in the story of Rahim Jaffer, the former Conservative MP who this week saw two serious criminal charges dropped against him as he pleaded guilty instead to a lesser one of careless driving?
Oh, you bet there is, but it’s not what you’ve heard.
The real double standard is that Mr. Jaffer has been painted as being every bit as guilty of the charges (excessive blood alcohol while driving and possession of cocaine) as if he’d been convicted of them…
After the Ontario decision was rendered, Liberal MP Anita Neville proceeded to tacitly convict him anyway from the safety of Parliamentary privilege. Blatchford explains:
…She went at it again a bit later, shrilling, “The Conservatives are conspicuously silent only when the law is being flouted by one of their own … why the double standard?”
Her suggestion was unmistakable: Mr. Jaffer got a sweetheart deal because he’s a powerful guy who’s married to a Tory minister (Helena Guergis, the federal Minister for the Status of Women) and mysterious strings were pulled on his behalf. He was guilty, he had flouted the law, and gotten away with something.
It is absolute hogwash.
This sort of plea arrangement is absolutely the norm in Canadian courts. As the Criminal Justice Review Committee noted in a 1999 report for the Ontario government, the vast majority of all criminal cases in Canada – 91.3 per cent of charges at the time in Ontario – are resolved by guilty pleas or by the prosecutor withdrawing charges, without the necessity of a trial…
Christie further reminds us that although the optics may not be good, we are often forced to respect the rule of law whether we like it or not:
…But we don’t get to call Ms. Homolka a murderer, because she was never convicted of murder. We don’t get to call Commissioner Fantino an influence-peddler, because the charge never went to trial, and so he isn’t. How is it that Ms. Neville gets to smear Mr. Jaffer? Oh yeah, because he’s a Tory, she’s a Liberal and it happened in the House of Commons.
Do remind me: Why is it everyone was so keen to get these folks back to work?
MSM is just as culpable if not more so as EBD points out in an excellent post at SDA:
…Now, keeping in mind that at the time he was charged Jaffer was neither a Conservative MP nor working for the Conservatives in any capacity whatsoever (they had long since elbowed him out of the nomination race in his riding), and that his plea deal was reached with the Crown prosecutor, not the judge, in a provincial jurisdiction that the federal government absolutely has no say in, take a look at a sampling of what various media and opposition members had to say:
David Akin: “Turns out the judge in the case, Doug Maund, is a long-time Tory.” Jane Taber: “Stephen Harper’s tough-on-crime Conservatives were accused of being not-so-tough when it comes to one of their own…” Akin, again: “Jaffer’s former caucus colleagues immediately tried to distance themselves from the (Crown prosecutor’s) decision.” Peter Mansbridge, introducing the top story on The National: “As a Conservative Member of Parliament Rahim Jaffer was known for his tough stand on crime. Now, the opposition says he’s a Tory example of another kind: hypocrisy!” Liberal MP Anita Neville, seen bellowing in the HOC on The National: “The Conservatives are conspicuously silent…when the law is being flouted by one of their own.” Toronto Lawyer Russell Silverstein, on The National: “You know, when the public sees somebody charged with drunk driving and possession of cocaine who’s politically connected…” Unidentified man-on-the-street, on The National: “Ex-Conservative MP, married to the Minister of State for Women’s Affairs – I mean obviously they’re going to drop the charges, they had no choice.” (all emph. mine)
The attempts to attach Jaffer to the Conservative government (“one of their own“) were pure partisan ridiculousness, and almost laughable. What was not even slightly laughable, in those several days of coverage, were the efforts of various media and opposition members to raise, in a sideways fashion – i.e., without being accountable for it – a constant insinuation that the Conservative government interfered behind the scenes in a decision made by a provincial crown prosecutor. For two days and nights, a serious allegation which there was no evidence for became unmistakably threaded into the subtext of the coverage of what was, unaccountably, the biggest news story in the country…
[Lots more]
Ah yes, you say - But don’t forget that Rahim Jaffer was a tough on drugs and crime guy when he was an MP so that justifies the vulture-fest because of the incredible hypocrisy, right?
Well if that is true then ex Ontario AG Michael Bryant must be quaking in his boots right now.
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Update
Jaffer plea deal ‘not so unusual’: lawyer – Joseph Brean, National Post (This is a must-read! H/T Wilson)
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Sunday Update
The politics of personal destruction have taken over – L. Ian MacDonald (another must-read):
…So in the law, we don’t know whether Jaffer “failed a breathalyser” or was “caught in possession of legal drugs,” because the crown, for reasons of its own, did not bring the case. But the judge having ruled, that should have been be the end of the matter. People can say what they want down at Tim Horton’s, that’s vox populi. But the people who make laws should show respect, not contempt, for outcomes.
The NDP’s deputy leader, Tom Mulcair, also specializes in sanctimonious indignation.
Here was his take, in question period, on the Jaffer case: “Why not take away judicial discretion in cases of serious offences, like cocaine possession, except of course when the offender is a former Conservative MP, in which case why not give him a break?”
This is breathtaking, essentially an attack on the independence and integrity of the judiciary. Mulcair is a lawyer, and if he’d said this outside the immunity of the House, he’d be in contempt of court, and could even be disbarred for such contemptuous comments…
[Emphasis mine]
