Oh, Dear, It's the Mop & Pail...& They'd Like To Borrow A Cup of Crazy

FURTHER TO OUR silly little contretemps yesterday, I notice-- "Quelle horreur!" -- that Canada's National Newspaper has gone squirrel with my little story.  (As opposed to "going viral" where an internet meme takes off, "going squirrel"is when the MSM can't help themselves from picking up something from a blog, but still manages to intimate that people the internet are nuts.)

Exhibit A -- Jane Taber's Ottawa Notebook:

First, favouring one homegrown squad or the other when there are only two Canadian teams left in the playoffs is bad enough when you are the Canadian Heritage Minister. But going so far as to favour the Western team (he represents a suburban Vancouver riding) over the team from Quebec when the party that you represent as Minister of Official Languages is depending on the province for its majority government is deranged.

In a blog post called Tweets Have Consequences, Denis McGrath, a TV writer and a big deal in the Writers Guild of Canada, wrote: “I wouldn’t have minded the evocation of the 2nd iteration of the Alberta wingers who took over the Conservative party a while back, but Moore is a politician – and words, whether they’re calling a constituent a ‘bigot’ or choosing a team in a match – have impact.”
Arguing that sport is a “special metaphor for everything”, Mr. McGrath writes that by stating that the Canucks are Canada’s team, Mr. Moore is doing what the Harper Conservatives do best – splitting Canadians apart into “an us or them.”
“Us doesn’t include the CBC, artistic elites, union people, city dwellers – and Quebec. In a fractious, minority parliament situation, divide & conquer, shore up your base & cherry pick some ridings here and there might be the only way toward stability. But it’s killing the country. Killing it.”
Mr. McGrath comments, too, on Mr. Moore’s poor timing in declaring the Canucks “Team Canada” on the heels of the men’s hockey Olympic gold medal victory that united the country. He says it goes beyond “tone deafness, into a very much darker corner of the current political climate.”
Oh, and he was just warming up…
Building to his conclusion, Mr. McGrath tells Mr. Moore not to lecture the electorate as to who is more Canadian, based on who they are rooting for in the playoffs.
So James Moore, what were you thinking? “Was trying to have fun. Relax, lighten up. Geez,” Mr. Moore told his critic. 

To correct the gentle writer for the august organ of record, I am a big deal only in relative circumference.

The thing is, I am more than willing to give the Honourable Member from Port Moody, Coquitlam & the other place I can't remember the benefit of the doubt -- poorly chosen words by a superfan in a medium that's (supposed to be) informal -- but the divisive, secretive and closed thinking this government shows dealing with anyone who disagrees with them, and the Minister's own propensity for being highly dismissive and rejecting input from anyone who isn't in "his" camp colours it a bit differently.

And the "lighten up" response -- that riposte that followed a thousand dirty jokes & ass grabs in the office 20 years ago -- isn't  stellar. What would have been the harm in, "I misspoke, and it was dumb. I thought like a hockey fan not a government minister. Like all Canadians, I just hope for some good hockey and a final between two Canadian teams -- and then, may the best team win. P.S. I think that's the Canucks.")

There. P.R. problem solved.

The post I wrote was really using the Hockey thing as a jumping off point to discuss and illustrate the minister -- and the government's -- prevailing attitude, which is -- "we know better, and if reality or data disagrees, we will choose ideology."

Sometimes teachable moments come wrapped in padding & face masks.

Ah well, back to the word mines.

I expect acorn showers from the Small Dead Animals nuthatch in 5, 4, 3...

-Posted from iPad, nerds!

UPDATE 05/03: 


This is cross-posted from below, where a commenter, "Red Snapper" points out another excellent take on the subtext of this article:

I also question his increasing use of the "block" function. He's actively shunning cultural organizations he's supposed to be standing up for as well as taxpayers who are so outrageous as to now [sic, he means 'not'] fawn over him 24/7.

That's a great point. The Minister got Pissed off at ACTRA a few weeks ago and blocked them, so that he doesn't have to read their responses, and they can't "follow" him.  This is a regular thing now with the Minister.  If you're not in step with his worldview, he does the digerati equivalent of putting hands over ears and petulantly shouting, "naah naah nahh can't hear you!"

You know, part of the rumbles over the Gordon Brown gaffe last week (separate & apart from the debate over whether the woman he spoke to was actually a bigot or not) comes from the fact that deep down, this is what a lot of us fear about politicians -- especially in a Parliamentary system where they're supposed to be more loyal to the party than their constituents -- when the doors are closed, they barely pay lip service to other people's opinions.  We're not naive.  We saw the result of George W. Bush's government shutting out any and all advisors that didn't conform to their worldview:  it transformed government into a purely political apparatus, with disastrous effects for the United States, and the world.  (In contrast, if you'll remember, to the Clinton years, when Republicans had to worry and harrumph over stained dresses because any of their good ideas were actually, you know, embraced by Clinton)

Blocking contrary voices on Twitter just proves that the guy is really, really interested in saying how great he is going around handing out money -- serving his portfolio? Not so much.