By John Klein (aka Saskboy)
One of the not-so-solemn duties of the blogosphere is to hold the Main Stream Media in check when they go a little astray. I’m not sure if I should hold Andrew Coyne’s hand as I walk him back to where he was a week ago, or if I should slap it for being caught in the Conservatives’ propaganda cookie jar. Mmmm, raisins.
Here’s where Coyne was last week:
.@acoyne: We’ve grown used to seeing prime ministers sealed inside an impenetrable bubble, but a whole party? http://t.co/cDdkvBsmZS #CPC13
— canada.com (@thecanadacom) November 4, 2013
Here he was three weeks ago:
Best line of the day: PMSH & Duffy “discreetly blackmailing each other” 4 the better part of a year @acoyne http://t.co/GvoCRSUyQy #cdnpoli — Elizabeth May MP (@ElizabethMay) October 23, 2013
Now, on to a new target: Starting a new news cycle so we don’t get bored worrying about how a secretive, extortive Prime Minister is running his office or his party:
My latest, on how the reach of Justin Trudeau’s intellect keeps exceeding its grasp: http://t.co/42bfhvCaEA
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) November 12, 2013
You know you’ve taken a wrong turn when Sun News gloats that you’re trying to do their job as Conservative Propaganda Distributor (CoPD):
Hey @calg_kiaguy, @Acoyne and those NatPost poseurs got nuthin’ on us http://t.co/Oe4uMLd5Ui ! — David Akin (@davidakin) November 12, 2013
COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is a fatal lung ailment, brought on typically through a sufferer’s own abuse through repeated consumption of harmful material (smoking). CoPD, on the other hand, kills the usefulness of political pundits, who’ve consumed so many Conservative propaganda attack ads that they begin to accept them as fair ways to frame criticism of targets in those ads.
Any message from a political attack ad should be taboo for a political pundit on TV who isn’t paid by a political party. These messages have been carefully crafted, after they’ve been study-grouped to gauge the psychological damage they cause. To later become a distributor of such a message should be the greatest sin of journalism.
Coyne: “The reach of Justin Trudeau’s intellect keeps exceeding its grasp”
Conservative propaganda since last year: #InOverHisHead
#cdnpoli #roft Uhoh! #CPC Attack ad tells a lie. #Trudeau was quoting his father. lmao #Harper is #InOverHisHead http://t.co/BN7qcQQw8f
— Penny Mills (@Pennyvane10) April 16, 2013
Yeah, the attack ad was dumb. It’s also working on even a leading Canadian political commentator who recently was concerned that Trudeau’s opposition is BLACKMAILING A SENATOR.
Coyne: “On the other hand, there are gaffes of a kind that tell us much. Ted Kennedy’s inability to answer a simple, obvious question — why do you want to be president — was all too revealing of the empty sense of entitlement at the heart of his 1980 campaign. They tell us, not so much of a candidate’s thoughts, but his thought process.”
I wonder what the Prime Minister’s “clear” answers around blackmailing a Senator into taking a bribe from his Chief of Staff can tell us about his thought process and fitness to govern? Could we perhaps focus on that a bit more until we have clearer answers?
Is criticism of Trudeau out of bounds just because he’s had an attack ad thrown at him? Not at all. His cynical or sincere promotion of the disastrous KXL pipeline is ample fodder to criticize Trudeau and the Liberal Party. Clearly they are playing chicken with the climate in order to win votes in oil country.
Obviously Coyne isn’t the only national columnist to have fallen prey to an attack ad, but I really think he stepped in it this week. Why try to change the channel on a story that involves the Prime Minister blackmailing a Senator, and his office hiding documents? The Senator has since handed over those emails to the RCMP. Don’t you sense there could be a much more important angle on national politics than what Coyne has followed his nose to? “Get your hand out of that cookie jar!” Keep sniffing around the PMO, please.
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