One is impressed by just how credulous the reading public — that would be you — can be. You see what I just did there? I just insulted you. Conventional wisdom would suggest that insulting one’s readers is not the best way to start an article. But conventional wisdom is pretty stupid, too.

It’s called “contrarianism,” and it’s what Christie Blatchford and Christopher Hitchens practise and practised, respectively, to a tee. And, as they know and knew, it’s good journalistic business, not least because readers will fall for it every time.

These thoughts — or rather, insults — are inspired by the response to Blatchford’s recent National Post Globe and Mail National Post column on man-hugging (I have trouble keeping track of who she’s writing for this week), and the recent outpouring of tweets and status updates beginning “I still can’t believe Christopher Hitchens supported the war in Iraq, but . . .”. Hitchens, of course, came out in favour of the invasion early on, and remained stridently unrepentant to the end. Blatchford’s column was on a less keen matter — the alleged sissification of the modern male, especially in Toronto — but the widespread astonishment that anyone could hold such an opinion, much less write it down, was about the same.

Dear Stupid Readers: these people don’t write broadsides and columns to be liked — they do it, at least much of the time, to rile you up. Why? Do I really have to write this? Because then you will continue to buy their books and newspapers. Thus endeth Street Journalism 101.

Readers don’t return to a writer or publication because the writer or publication is correct — they do it because, as a seasoned editor once taught me, to my own youthful astonishment, they have developed an emotional connection to the writer or publication. And outrage will do the job as well as any other emotion. The easiest way to forge this sort of codependent relationship with the reader is to look for a widely-held assumption and then argue its opposite. Babies cute? Babies suck. War in Iraq bad? War in Iraq good. Rinse and repeat.

It also gives the writer something new to say. After a decade-or-two of spouting left-wing pieties, even the most earnest of fellow-travellers is liable to hanker for a change of subject. This explains P.J. O’Rourke. For some reason, it doesn’t seem to work the other way as often — right to left — though we are currently seeing a variant in David Frum’s reinvention of himself as a critic of the Republican Party. In Frum’s case, though, it is likely a matter of survival — having been frog-marched out of the clubhouse, he doesn’t have much choice.

This is not to say that these people don’t believe what they write — I have no doubt Hitchens was sincere in his support of the Iraq invasion. It just means that, when they sit down to put their unpopular thoughts out into the public sphere, they don’t get all quivery and “Gee, maybe I shouldn’t say this.” Instead, they go, “Oh goody.” Because they know how you are going to respond.

And so, dear Stupid Readers (as well as the rest of you), you might save yourself a lot of turmoil if, when Blatchford produces her next unspeakable column about how, really, smoking is good for you or Stephen Harper is actually kind of cute, you smile and respond, “Oh, Christie” (and perhaps also observe how freaking funny and well-written her stuff is).

And by the way: Babies really do suck.

On Airshow Peter MacKay’s attempt to discredit Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin by accusing him of not having brought up detainee abuse the one time MacKay met with Colvin in Afghanistan:
He, Colvin, had only been on the job for 10 days and had not met with any detainees yet. And even if he had, protocol was to report to DFAIT, not the minister.

On Christie Blatchford’s Con-fed column that Colvin had only been outside the wire once:
Colvin: “Outside the wire” in Kandahar at least 11 times, in Kabul over 500 times.

On the claim his reports in 2006 did not use the word “torture”:
Colvin: Six reports, one including the phrase ” rife with torture.”

On the government claim it heard no allegations of “torture” prior to April 2007:
Colvin: “… in early March 2007, I informed an interagency meeting of some 12 to 15 officials in Ottawa that, ‘The NDS tortures people, that’s what they do, and if we don’t want our detainees tortured, we shouldn’t give them to the NDS.’ . . . . The response from the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) note-taker was to stop writing and put down her pen.”

On the claim that it was only insurgents and Taliban who were detained:
Colvin: “… it was the NDS that told us that many or most of our detainees were unconnected to the insurgency. This assessment was reported to Ottawa. The NDS also told us that, because the intelligence value of Canadian-transferred detainees was so low, it did not want them.”

On the government claim that it took action as soon as it was informed of abuse:
They were informed repeatedly of the risk of torture, the deficiencies of Canada’s monitoring system, and delays in reports to the ICRC in 2006 in reports from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, the US State Department, and the US Secretary General. They finally sent someone in October 2007 who immediately confirmed torture.

The government also twice intervened to keep a torturer named by the PRT in place.

On Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan David Mulroney’s statement that the only reason reports were edited was to remove “opinion” or “non-fact based” information:
Colvin: Embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government’s public messaging. Ambassador Lalani instructed that we not report that the security situation was deteriorating.

In September 2007, an embassy staffer, in response to a written request from DFAIT’s Afghanistan Taskforce to contribute to a security assessment by one of our NATO allies, sent a report that security in Kandahar had got worse and was likely to further deteriorate. Mr. Mulroney severely rebuked the officer in writing.

On Assistant Deputy Minister Colleen Swords’ testimony that she told Colvin to phone first, write later:
Colvin: “Her message to me was that I should use the phone instead of writing…”

On the claim from Goldie, Gallant, MacKay, Abbott that “Afghan detainees are trained to claim torture”:
Colvin: They are not Al Qaeda; they are peasants. We arrest them and turn them over to torturers. Why would they make any claims of torture, false or otherwise, to us? They don’t trust us. Besides, reports of torture based on physical exams, not testimony.

And so on and so on. Absolutely devastating.

When Colvin originally testified at the Afghan Committee, he was just doing his job — appearing as summoned. As he stated this week, he is not a whistleblower.

His letter, on what he politely termed the “inaccuracies” of the government’s witnesses and MPs and camp followers, is even more damaging than his original testimony.

Government response?

Fucking idiot Goldie Hawn: “Now is not the time to accuse our troops of war crimes.”

Peter MacKay’s spokesweasel, Dan Dugas: “We reject all assertions that Canadian troops have committed war crimes.” Which is interesting in light of Colvin’s letter. Note that he does not even obliquely lay blame on the military brass, never mind the troops. Nope, it’s all on MacKay, DFAIT, and the Privy Council Office.

And this is why Harper has refused to release the docs to Peter Tinsley’s Military Police Complaints Committee and the Afghan Committee, has fired Peter Tinsley, has intimidated witnesses from appearing before the Afghan committee, has refused to allow the Afghan Committee to continue their investigation, and has refused to call a public inquiry as voted on by the House.

All because one civil servant insisted on doing his job.

“There were allegations of Canadian troops involved in torture. We’ve been very clear that’s not the case.”

In condemning with the same brush highly professional Canadian soldiers, and to complain that they were complicit in breaches of the law of armed conflict and knowingly buried his reports, it is Mr. Colvin who has some explaining left to do.

Steve bravely champions the troops by hiding behind them and pointing a finger at them.

Are people gonna fall for this bs?

Impolitical handily deconstructs Harper’s nonsense

while Contrarian takes down Blatchford.

And yes, why was Christie Blatchford leaked information deemed too sensitive for the Parliamentary Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan?.

And now, to blog the bloggers and columnists on the Conrad Black Trial . . .

Even as Christie Blatchford engaged in some generous genital-licking of Mark Steyn as part of her coverage, referring to him as “a very funny columnist” (which is often true), she was also showing him how to do the job. Steyn, who was a favoured columnist at both The National Post and The Daily Telegraph when they were owned by Black, has been covering the trial in his Maclean’s blog with the alert air of a puppy who senses that his master might be in some sort of trouble. Blatchford is known to be just as much a Black patriot, but she knows better than to appear so.

And so while Steyn works the ad tanimens (“I sat behind [prosecution witness] Paris as he waited to take the stand and, to judge from the back of his neck, he’s been working on his tan”), Blatchford presents more equable, if tenuous, arguments supporting Black’s justifications: “After all, what good would a non-compete agreement be with a newspaper company if the owners — with, in Lord Black’s case, his larger-than-life personality and considerable experience — can just form a new company and open up shop the next day?”

Now, given that in once instance Lord Black sold American Trucker magazine and then agreed not to compete with it, this strikes me as tenuous indeed; the notion that he might turn around and start up a rival American Trucker magazine from his home on the Bridle Path Estates in Toronto seems pretty much risible. However, Blatchford is at least not stooping to examining the prosecution witnesses’ tanlines to determine their worthiness.

Elsewhere, Patrick Gossage (who I believe had something to do with the federal Liberals a long time ago, but I can’t be bothered to google it) takes the position in Toronto Life that the presence of Lady Black-Amiel in the courtroom is a liability, given the “irreversible perception of Barbara” as a, oh, whatever. The fact that the words “Barbara” and “Amiel” are as meaningless to Chicago jurors as “Peter” and “Mansbridge” is lost on Mr. Gossage.

Meanwhile, the best (if not the most aggrieved [Steyn] or most entertaining [Douglas Bell in Toronto Life]) blogger on the Black trial is Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader who writes: “Canadian reporters in Chicago should take note: Conrad Black, aka Lord Black of Crossharbour, is nothing we haven’t seen before. Black’s blunder was to take his company public, putting his vast vanity and indulgences on a short leash held by stockholders. Sam Zell is buying the Tribune Company to take it private, where goofy media moguls can do what they please.”