Stephen, it’s interesting that you only include my quotes as they pertain to the Liberal Party and not the ones that state the Conservative Party of Canada is guilty of the same things. I had hoped for better observation and comment. The issue is that politics itself is broken, and not merely the Liberal kind. I’m being honest about my party; hopefully you will be about yours.

Glen

Stephen, it’s interesting that you only include my quotes as they pertain to the Liberal Party and not the ones that state the Conservative Party of Canada is guilty of the same things. I had hoped for better observation and comment. The issue is that politics itself is broken, and not merely the Liberal kind. I’m being honest about my party; hopefully you will be about yours.

Glen

In competence comes to mind.

In competence comes to mind.

What do I think plagues the Liberal Party?

Liberals.

What do you believe plagues the Liberal Party of Canada?

Reality
And a Liberal bias media that sheilded the Libs and demonized the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives,
making the former lazy and the later stronger and smarter.

What do you believe plagues the Liberal Party of Canada?
Their inability to come to terms that they've stolen Canadian taxpayers money and not only do they refuse to acknowledge this crime they refuse to start paying anything back.
Until they do they're doomed.

Let me take a guess.

On the one hand Mr. Pearson laments the elitism and disconnect of the Liberal party.

““Like it or not, today’s Liberal Party is often viewed as elitist, out of touch with daily pressures of average people and groups.”

This is followed by a statement that epitomizes elitism and disconnect.

“[T]oday’s Liberal Party spends an inordinate amount of time talking about institutional politics and policy as opposed to the key role of the citizen as an agent of progress.”

Liberals don't view the citizens as autonomous individuals pursuing their own interests, they view them as agents of the State to be herded and harnessed in order to realize some kind of Progressive utopia. They objectify the citizenry. We're viewed as a means to an end, not as individuals with inherent rights and autonomy.

So, since Progressive Liberalism objectifies the citizenry, is it any wonder that there is a disconnect?

What plagues the Liberal Party ?

They can't play the political game from the Opposition side of the board.

Corruption, elitism, failed socialist policies and, most of all, the enduring central Canada focus.

Corruption, elitism, failed socialist policies and, most of all, the enduring central Canada focus.

Well Glen – his post wasn’t about what you said about the Conservative party, it was what a Liberal said about the Liberal party. Take it like a man!

Well Glen – his post wasn’t about what you said about the Conservative party, it was what a Liberal said about the Liberal party. Take it like a man!

Those would be the quotes where you are dead wrong.

The main problem with the Liberal Party is that they do not have a central focus on where they stand in the political spectrum. I was once a card carrying Liberal before I became a card carrying Progressive Conservative who also lost their way thanks to Joe Clark. After a few years I latched onto the Alliance Party which I thought was a merger of Reform with the PC's. Eventually that merger became a fact thanks to the very honourable Mr. McKay. The Liberal party moved left and lost the mainstream Canadian voter. That left the middle way to the Conservative party under Stephen Harper. People have come to realise that there was no hidden agenda but a rational option for progress.

To sum up, significant leadership elements of the Liberal Party are now entering into a discussion of a merger with the ultra socialist NDP. The NDP champions state control of private enterprise which is a very radical position for most Canadians. It seems that the Liberals are disunited in the way to the future. We Conservatives were in that position through much of the Chretien era. I am convinced that a lot of Liberals of today would move to the Conservative side if faced with a merger with the socialists. State control and ownership of business, I don't think so.

Glen, you have a point. I think Stephen should have included the quotes you had about Conservatives, and on politics in general. But c’mon, Stephen Taylor is the premiere Tory blogger, he’s not going to, pardon my pun, ‘harp’ on his own team here.

Glen, you have a point. I think Stephen should have included the quotes you had about Conservatives, and on politics in general. But c’mon, Stephen Taylor is the premiere Tory blogger, he’s not going to, pardon my pun, ‘harp’ on his own team here.

In Pearson's entire post titled “Liberalism – The Power of One”, there was only one quote about Conservatives. His focus was all about the Liberal Party of Canada. But I agree with him that the Liberal Party is elitist and out of touch with Canadians. We are put off by the arrogance of the party's leader with his “natural governing party” remarks.

And I agree that “liberalism is all about individual freedom.” Unfortunately, the Liberal Party of Canada is not. They are all about expanding taxpayer funded government control over our lives. Ignatieff has made it clear that a Liberal government would create a national day care program — we'll all be forced to pay to raise other peoples' kids. He would keep the censorship powers of Section 13 of Canada's Human Rights Act.

Tell you what, Mr. Pearson, if you want Canadians to consider the Liberal Party as a viable option to govern us, then how about you guys return the tens of millions of Adscam money you stole from taxpayers. And, no, I won't shut up about that ever. Your party doesn't have the decency to return the stolen money and punish the crooks. I would never vote for a party of thieves.

Don't be too surprised. I respect Stephen Taylor, at the same time I know what he does for a living and who's paying, so I recognise that this site is mainly a worship and instruction centre for the faithful.

Nonetheless, he brings us some new viewpoints and insights, including yours, for which I'm grateful.

The federal Liberals… have lost their way, and uh, it comes from the top. Until an issue or a personality emerges that galvanizes the party and produces a clear policy message, they won't command a majority.

Thanks for having the courage to be self-critical. We all stand to benefit from an improved system.

Absolutely dead on: “One of our key weaknesses as a national party at present is our distance – physical, emotional, empathetic – from the average lives of citizens.”

And that's a key reason why increasing numbers of Canadians are finding Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be more attractive than our media wants him to be: He's one of us; he's not a lawyer; he lived on a normal street, in a normal house — not a mansion like the Liberal Rosedale/Forest Hill/Rockliffe socialists — before he became PM; he has kids who play hockey and a wife who provides shelter for orphaned animals AND rides a motorcycle!!

PMSH can relate to the every-day expenses of Canadian families and shows some sympathy for the tax burden on the middle class, unlike the Liberals who have been “run” by the Power Corporation elite in Quebec.

When's Glen Pearson going to cross the floor? Methinks he'd be more comfortable sitting with the CPC.

I beg to differ, Mr. Pearson, that the CPC and its members are “guilty of the same things” as your party. You've got AdScam and $40,000,000 of taxpayers' dollars stolen from us — and no admission of guilt, no apology, and no paying back the missing money. Canadians have long memories and this scandal is not going to go away, no matter how hard the LPC and its cheerleaders in the media try to sweep it under the carpet.

Also, Mr. Pearson, Power Corporation is a huge millstone around the LPC's neck — not for Canadians who don't know about the Desmarais Family's influence on decades of Liberal politicians but for those of us who do, Power Corporation can't be hidden behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain. How do you defend their involvement with the Liberals since Trudeau's time, their connections with China, their involvement in the oil industry in Iraq and their connections to Saddam Hussein?

Until the Liberals come clean with Canadians and stop acting as though they're the perpetual ruling party, until they show some humility, until they stop continually criticizing the present government's policies without offering any viable alternatives or having the guts to bring a no-confidence motion against the government, they will be held in contempt by a great many Canadians, myself included.

Political parties have to EARN respect. It's just not handed to them on a silver or gold platter. They have to earn respect by showing that they have the good of the country and Canadians as their highest priority, not the good of their party and its members at the top of their list. The way too many Liberal MPs carry on, unmercifully tearing down Prime Minister Harper's duly elected government, is an affront to a great many Canadians and has resulted in legitimate criticism of the LPC, yours included.

Until the LPC faces reality, acknowledges and apologizes for lots of mismanagement of the public purse, and begins to work WITH the Harper government for the good of all Canadians, it will continue to languish. It's carrying way too much baggage to be able to gain lift off.

So, because the LPC is broken you go on to deduct therefore politics itself is broken.

Sounds like a slight bit of Liberal arrogance to me.

Politics isn't broken but it's a pretty shabby job the Liberals are doing as Official Opposition, it's about more than playing gotcha games.

Increasing numbers. Right.

But, but, but…our party is NOT guilty of the same things. That's most likely why Stephen left them out so as to not embarrass you further.

What is wrong with the liberal party is their media friends who will never tell us the truth. Their hate for our PM has blinded them. We now have other means of finding out news and the truth.
First, all their leadership guys/gals should pay back their loans, then adscam and the missing money. And they must issue a very public and meaningful mea culpa and name names.
We have apologized to natives, residential school victims, the chinese, and who else. Do we have to wait 100 yrs for libs to apologize to Canadians.
Next they could ask/order a lot of longtime liberals to resign. Regardless of the leader it is those that come with him to make up the caucus that are the problem.
3 candidates of quit, another is facing some serious charges and a sitting mp has been arrested and still sits in caucus. Then the biggest problem for the liberals is their annointed leader. They were hoping for a quick election, and win it, before we found out the truth about him. Didn't work, and if his buddies really thought Dion would resign if the coup had worked, they had better think again.

The problem with the Liberal party is (as well as what's mentioned above) twofold, their history and their brand. From Trudeau running against Clarke's wage and price controls and them imposing them to his decimating the military, taking us into a national debt, and dividing the country with his NEP and bilingualism, to Cretin's running on eliminating the GST and re-writing NAFTA and then giving us the HRDC scandal, Shawinigate, the Billion dollar boondoggle of a useless Long gun registry to the Grand mere affair and Adscam, they have given us 50 years of unmitigated disaster – simply put, they have taken that old joke about “How do you know when a politician is lying” (Answer – when his lips are moving) and virtually owned it and made it theirs. Moreover – they insist they are right even when buried under the litany of their lies. To put Dion up as a Leader when he was part of the Kyoto disaster and part of Cretin's Adscam Cabinet wasn't just arrogance, it was giving the electorate the finger (maybe the same one Trudeau gave the public in Salmon Arm BC.) Rae was and remains unelectable in Ontario for anyone who was of working age for Rae-Days so they had to go outside the country to get Iggy who was untainted by Adscam who came with his own baggage. Through all of this, the arrogance of their social engineering attempts and attacks on the west continued even as the west was gaining economic and electoral power. (Liberal Senator) Keith Davies “Screw the west, we'll take the rest” has come home to roost as well. Not the brightest tactics. It wasn't helped by CBC becoming a Liberal mouthpiece either a it enabled them to continue without criticism when just deepened the hole. As one wag put it after the last election “If you look at the electoral map, the Liberal party is now a party of greater Toronto” and to both Davies and the Liberals dismay, the country is far bigger than Toronto and the Bloc has taken over in Quebec which leaves pretty slim pickings.
The fact is that the west is coming of age which means, to encapsulate, new Canada is, if not taking over, certainly rising up from old Canada which paid attention almost exclusively to Ontario and Quebec. If Iggy had the balls to fight off his Rosedale handlers, he might have a chance but the days when the media attacked Manning, Day, and anyone who came out of the west (Harper included) simply pissed people off and they don't swallow the bogeyman bull anymore because its been proven to be bunk. We had Dosanjh screaming we didn't need the planes that turned out to be necessary to send relief to Haiti, pretty much the entire international community complimenting us on the Governments handling of the economic crisis and we are stepping back onto the world stage that years of the Liberal party have removed us from. Again, we are claiming soverignty in our north which the Liberals all but abandoned with the PM insisting on missions and bases up there so just maybe we can recover mineral and resource rights before everyone from Denmark to Russia claim them on our behalf. Vote Liberal? I did that once, and that was for Trudeau – I'm still ashamed….

kenn2, I KNEW it was going to be a poll. I almost didn't click on your link.

Polls come and polls go. We still have a CPC government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is still Canada's prime minister and the leader of our government. He's been playing this role very well for almost five years.

Yes, increasing numbers are beginning to see that PMSH is a stalwart, he's smart, he's steady, he's an able leader, he's a grown up.

Oh yeah, that's another thing that plagues the Liberals: their juvenile state: It's not my fault! It's her fault! It's his fault! I didn't do it! Don't blame me! It's Stephen Harper's fault! The CPC are mean! Stephen Harper's a control freak! etc., etc. ad nauseum.

With the likes of Marlene Jennings, Mark Holland, Carolyn Bennett, Denis Coderre, Ruby Dhalla, Ujjal Dosanjh, Hedy Fry, Justin Truedau, to name only a few, in the LPC caucus, Canadians aren't impressed. Their “gotcha” politics are wearing increasingly thin because those are the only arrows they seem to have in their quiver. Liberals need to prove to Canadians that they're not just on the taxpayer-funded gravy train — first-class all the way.

The Liberals have to prove that they want the government to work for Canadians, not just for their small, self-serving constituency. Up to now, they haven't proven this, they've proved the opposite. They're for themselves and they want power at all costs because they really seem to think that they're the “natural ruling party.”

Hahahahahahahaha!

I'm trying to stay out of your way, really… but this can't pass unchallenged:

pretty much the entire international community complimenting us on the Governments handling of the economic crisis

the economic fundamentals that got Canada through this economic crisis were put in place long before Harper. Harper at least had the good sense not to screw those up. It did take a good swift kick coalition to the backside before he finally saw sense on stimulus funding.

Good synopsis, Doug.

You should be ashamed for voting for Trudeau but he wasn't exactly what he seemed to many early on.

Oh, yes, how do you account for all the crying from the coalition of losers about the deficit being bumped up due to all the stimulous demanded by them… OR ELSE ?

God, how pathetic can you get?

A bit simplisitc and misleading. While the Bank Act was certainly not a CPC invention, the fact is that the stimulus and timing was. You may remember that prior governments (both PC and Liberal) has raised the National Debt to a point that it couldn't be controlled – it was actually Preston Manning who started preaching fiscal conservatism and the Libs were still against it until our National and bond credit rating was downgraded, literally forcing Martin to take action. His action was to simply download everything on to the provinces – if he had done it and, at the same time eliminated the Transfer payments that would have done the trick as it would have forced Provinces to pay for their own programs. Instead he tried to force, through those payments, the west to pay for the rest of them (and include Ontario here as the three “have” provinces were BC Alta and Ont.). (As Liberal MP Karyganis pointed out – that was the idea of the Green Shift too but I digress). But the fact is that the awards and rocognition came for more than just the fundamentals. To wit: “that the policies adopted by Canada for battling global financial meltdown have helped it in attaining this reputation.” (See below for the entire article) An example of that was the governments initiatives on “Shovel ready” projects and the tax breaks for home improvements – what they did was keep the guys on the street employed, the tradesmen instead of simply bailing out the high profile boys as was done in the States – trickle up economics, if you will – and none of that had anything to do with the coalition. In fact, if Harper had really wanted to get his majority over the best interests in the country – all he had to do was to let the government fall and go to the polls – if you remember, after the 3 stooges tried their little power grab, the polls were saying clearly that the CPC would have had 78% of support – so the Dippers and Lieberals would have now been extinct. So to encapsulate; – the “Coalition” was about the worst idea Dion et al could possibly have come up with, it was based on the panic arising from the fact that in the proposed budget, all political parties would have had their collective hands removed for the public teat (as 65% of Canadians wished) and had bugger all to do with Liberal financial acumen for the global meltdown.

“The Euromoney magazine has named Canada's Jim Flaherty as the finance minister of the year. This is the second honour for Canada, after it was rated as the best of the G8 nations by World Economic Forum for showcasing a good battle against current global crisis.
The International Monetary Fund has also forecast that Canada will be one of the nations, which will have a minimal impact from economic meltdown. It has also been predicted to witness the strongest and earliest recovery signs from economic crises among the G8 nations.
Euromoney magazine, which presented the award after the IMF and World Bank meeting got over, mentioned that the policies adopted by Canada for battling global financial meltdown have helped it in attaining this reputation. Flaherty listed responsible fiscal management and effective regulation of the financial system as the reasons for Canada's better performance. He added that the sound fiscal management has helped Canada to witness lower job cuts when compared to US.”

Not so pathetic as to credit the CPC for policies, regulations and work done by others.

(…and why are you blaming ME for every utterance of anyone left of Mussolini? I haven't blamed you for DougM, have I?)

What can I say, I was young and ignorant. In my defense there is the old adage “If you haven't been a socialist by the time you are twenty, you have no heart. If you are still a socialist by the time you are forty, you have no brain..” It only took me to about 20 to get a brain, and there are far far worse.

From your article:
Flaherty listed responsible fiscal management and effective regulation of the financial system as the reasons for Canada's better performance.

That didn't just happen in the last 4 years.

Indeed, he did. That's because in some circles (and damned certainly not Liberal ones, so perhaps you should be forgiven this lapse) it is considered unseemly to crow about your achievements, particularly on a public podium when recieving an award. So Flaherty also acknowledged the “responsible fiscal management and effective regulation of the financial system” which was at least partly in place before their arrival, (something no Liberal would ever do) however fiscal management is also part of a budget and therefore a Parliamentry session. But again I direct you to the wording of the award, to wit; a.)” showcasing a good battle against current global crisis”; and b.) “the policies adopted by Canada for battling global financial meltdown”. Ergo, the policies he was being awarded for, were the current ones, what Flaherty did was include the structures in place such as the Bank Act. Again, with any type of modesty and truth so utterly foreign to Liberals, clearly I should have been more precise. But it is, after all, a Conservative blog. My apoligies.

But then, I'm in the center and not on the right so it would be incorrect. Just because I happen to object to people who have made lying to the Canadian public, doing precisely the opposite of what they run a platform on, and running a government on a level of corruption that could only be envied by the Hell's Angels, a virtual trademark, doesn't put me on the right of the political spectrum. It simply means that when Jean Cretin vomited into an open mike that ” If US Politicians were in Canada, they would all be in jail” what he was really saying was that if we had impeachment procedures in Canada, his party would have been in there first and no doubt making the beds for the US pols.

Actually, Batb, Martin did apologize for Adscam and the party repaid the $14M. The $40M is a blogger invention. Your memory is not as long as you pretend it to be.

As for Power Corp and the Desmarais… well, Stephen Harper's transformation into Mulroney should now be considered complete.

Until the CPC faces reality, acknowledges and apologizes for lots of mismanagement of the public purse, and begins to work WITH Parliament for the good of all Canadians, it will continue to languish in minority. It's already generated way too much baggage to be able to gain lift off.

When the government continuously and regularly breaks the law, shows utter contempt for our fundamental democratic and accountability institutions, uses government and government spending as its own money… and completely gets away with it… yes, politics itself is broken.

Batb:

Polls do indeed go up and down, but you are the one who claims support is going up for Harper and all evidence points the other way. Not only did fewer Canadians vote for him in the last election than in 2006, but he won with the lowest level of support of any PM in our entire history. And now he wallows around 30%. When has someone who consistently only gets the support of a third of voters been considered to be popular and successful?

As for pass the buck “it's not our fault”, Harper and the CPC have perfected that. There is always someone else to blame and they will always find a way to blame the Liberals or the press or some staffer or the US or anyone else for their mistakes and screw-ups and incomptence.

Don't mistake of equating Liberal weakness with Conservative competence. We've never had a less competent, fiscally idiotic, pass the buck and don't take blame government in my lifetime.

The Conservatives have to prove that they want the government to work for Canadians, not just for their small, self-serving constituency. Up to now, they haven't proven this, they've proved the opposite. They're for themselves and they want power at all costs because they really seem to think that they're the “natural ruling party” and are entitled to their perks and entitled to a majority. With their arrogance and incompetence, they will never get it, no matter how badly the Liberals do.

Actually he almost did screw those things up.

One of the first things he did was to introduce US-style cheap 40 year no-money-down mortgages backed by government insurance guarantees. After a year and a half of that way too obvious disaster in the making, enough sane people told him to shut down that volcano and he did. However, we are still on the hook for half a billion dollars worth of mortgage insurance company guarantees.

Harper also has strongly opposed the very fiscal regulations he now takes credit for. Worse, he had new looser regulations in the works across all industries. He has begun to implement them but not the bank regulations.

Another honest analysis from someone who gives cash to the Liberals but votes NDP.

it is considered unseemly to crow about your achievements

True. Harper introduced us to the modest custom of sticking the CPC logo on government presentation cheques.

…what was I thinking? Thanks Ted.

I'm going for a blood test; I may have had some of the Koolaid here.

Nice try, Ted.

Paul Martin's “apology” ain't worth zip, as he, Chretien, and Mo Strong hang out in China making lots of do-re-mi, something that started when they were politicians (Martin and Chretien: Check out the Sidewinder Report, which was deep-sixed by Chretien). There are still Adscam suspects being tried while Martin and Chretien try to fly under the radar — that is, when they're not publicly criticizing Prime Minister Harper (which used to be a real faux pas when former PMs were gentlemen, not sleaze-bag moral pygmies).

As for the photo, I don't see how inviting Andre Desmarais to a dinner with Chinese officials in Canada could be avoided by the Prime Minister. PMSH, at least, isn't in bed with them, unless you know something that the rest of us don't. I'm sure he does, however, have to deal with them seeing as les hommes Desmarais shadow the Liberal Party, with their hands in their pockets like that ad on TV, and have huge dealings with the Chinese. Obviously, Canada is in trade negotiations with China, something that is unavoidable seeing as China is the largest market in the world.

You're being disingenuous comparing a photo of Prime Minister Harper with Andre Desmarais and various Chinese officials to Power Corporation's long history of involvement with the Liberal Party of Canada. Remember, too, that Andre Desmarais is married to Jean Chretien's daughter, France, and that not joining our U.S. allies in the war in Iraq had less to do with Canada's “peaceful” tendenices than it had to do with Chretien's not wanting to interfere with his grandchildren's energy holdings, which were all wrapped up with Saddam Hussein's policies.

The stench emanating from the Liberal/Power Corporation connection isn't going to go away. And if it weren't for the appalling non-appetite for investigative journalism on the part of the LPC-lapdog journos, more Canadians would be clamouring for more information. And THAT's another scandal: the media's role in covering up this connection. But that's a topic for another day.

Nice try, Ted.

Paul Martin's “apology” ain't worth zip, as he, Chretien, and Mo Strong hang out in China making lots of do-re-mi, something that started when they were politicians (Martin and Chretien: Check out the Sidewinder Report, which was deep-sixed by Chretien). There are still Adscam suspects being tried while Martin and Chretien try to fly under the radar — that is, when they're not publicly criticizing Prime Minister Harper (which used to be a real faux pas when former PMs were gentlemen, not sleaze-bag moral pygmies).

As for the photo, I don't see how inviting Andre Desmarais to a dinner with Chinese officials in Canada could be avoided by the Prime Minister. PMSH, at least, isn't in bed with them, unless you know something that the rest of us don't. I'm sure he does, however, have to deal with them seeing as les hommes Desmarais shadow the Liberal Party, with their hands in their pockets like that ad on TV, and have huge dealings with the Chinese. Obviously, Canada is in trade negotiations with China, something that is unavoidable seeing as China is the largest market in the world.

You're being disingenuous comparing a photo of Prime Minister Harper with Andre Desmarais and various Chinese officials to Power Corporation's long history of involvement with the Liberal Party of Canada. Remember, too, that Andre Desmarais is married to Jean Chretien's daughter, France, and that not joining our U.S. allies in the war in Iraq had less to do with Canada's “peaceful” tendenices than it had to do with Chretien's not wanting to interfere with his grandchildren's energy holdings, which were all wrapped up with Saddam Hussein's policies.

The stench emanating from the Liberal/Power Corporation connection isn't going to go away. And if it weren't for the appalling non-appetite for investigative journalism on the part of the LPC-lapdog journos, more Canadians would be clamouring for more information. And THAT's another scandal: the media's role in covering up this connection. But that's a topic for another day.

Uh huh. So you say.

The Liberal sleaze for over 30 years (and I'm proud to say that I was never sucked into Trudeaumania; I smelled a rat back in the early '70s when I could first vote) has badly eroded voter confidence and the Charter-of-Rights (no responsibilities)-and-Freedoms (mistaken for license)-fed new generations of “voters” don't even bother to vote. Hey, why should they? They've got their “rights” (check out Christie Blatchford's article on the “protesters”: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ch…).

These entitled kids with good teeth are the legacy of Trudeaupia; I've seen this train coming down the track for a long time and because I don't suffer from historical amnesia or that most odious of syndromes, the political correctness one, my eyes are wide open.

Our prime minister and his party aren't perfect — what political party is? — but given their combined leftard and separatist Opposition, they're holding up pretty well. The fact that PMSH was able to hold onto a minority, at all, with three Opposition parties opposing him and the jackals in the media acting as an unelected Opposition, tells you that Canadians — the few of us who bothered to vote — preferred the CPC brand to the others. They were duly elected, whatever the stats are and whatever your opinion, Ted.

Canada's Parliamentary democracy is taking a huge beating with four political parties, and one whose sole purpose is to break up Canada and for whose candidates only people in one province can vote; what a travesty of democracy. I suspect that it's going to be increasingly difficult for ANY Canadian political party to win a majority, let alone the CPC.

Any way you cut it, Ted, the LPC is in big trouble due to lack of leadership (crowning party leaders isn't the Canadian way, especially when you parachute the leader in from having spent 30 years away from Canada), unresolved scandals for which the LPC refuse to take responsibility or be accountable for, and the inability to raise substantial funds due to the lack of grassroots support. If I were a Liberal, I'd begin to attend to my own glass house, which is in major disrepair, rather than throwing stones at someone else's.

Yeah, kenn2, and the Opposition parties are now criticizing Prime Minister Harper and his government for spending TOO much on the stimulation package.

We all know that because the LPC lacks a sound policy platform — after all, they were able to rely on their comfy majority, their money-making scandals, AND a compliant media to keep them in power through the Trudeau/Chretien/Martin years — their only modus operandi is to pile on the CPC and its leader at every opportunity, which is about twice or three times a day. I'd like, just once, to see a dignified and meaningful Question Period in the HOC without either Marlene Jennings, Usajj Dosanjh, Bob Rae, Carolyn Bennett, or Mark Holland going on a rant.

There ARE legitimate criticisms that can be made of the CPC, as there are for all governments, but these guys are such a pack of jackals and cry “Wolf!” so often, that it's impossible not to see them as simply obstructionist.

“The issue is that politics itself is broken, and not merely the Liberal kind. I'm being honest about my party; hopefully you will be about yours.'

I trust you now see this was the wrong place to come if you wanted an honest analysis of either party.

Thanks, Doug, for all of your input. The LPC footprint isn't going to go away and the more we continue to place in front of people the results of the Trudeau/Chretien/Martin/Power Corporation legacy, the more apparent it will become that Trudeau's and the LPC's “golden age” was nothing but a beard for some of the most ruthless, unprincipled gouging of the electorate in Canada's history.

I still have some difficulty seeing all the Suns, the National Post… Global (at least when owned by the Aspers) as “LPC-lapdog journos”. How come they missed the Liberal/Power Corporation “stench”, then?

Ted, maybe you'd like to comment on Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's disgraceful speech in China this weekend where he said

“We must be ready to speak plainly with one another about human rights,”

… [and] then made no mention of China's lack of democratic freedoms such as free elections and freedom of speech and the press, or its brutal treatment of ethnic minorities from the Tibetans to the Uyghurs. The only human rights track record he criticized was Canada's — Ignatieff told his foreign audience that

“I am not blind to the gap that exists between our ideals and reality for some of my fellow citizens” … and that China and Canada can “learn from each other in matters of rights, justice, civil service reform and corporate social responsibility.”

(http://www.nationalpost.com/Speaking+false+prai…).

Right. Did we hear the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada correctly? Did he actually say that Canada can learn from CHINA about rights, justice, civil service reform, and corporate social responsibility? (The melamine scandal comes to mind and the execution of the business executive mastermind … is this what Mr. Ignatieff was thinking?)

Maybe we can learn from China what NOT to do in the area of human rights, justice, civil service reform and corporate social responsibility.

It's this kind of offensive nonsense from the Liberal leader about a moral equivalency between Canada and China that makes it difficult to take the LPC seriously. I figure he's just dancing to the tune of his Rosedale handlers and Chretien, Martin, the Desmarais family, and their man in Bejing, Mo Strong.

'Not a pretty sight.

Check out Lorne Gunter's column today in the National Post, which comments on Glen Pearson's observations about the LPC:

How the Liberal elites lost touch with Canadians

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/07/…

Great column by Gunter.

The Liberals, like the provincial Liberals under Dalton McGuinty are listing far, far to the Left into the nanny State domain . They even want our kiddies in state run day care also known a schools from diapers to university.

kenn2: “How come they missed the Liberal/Power Corporation 'stench', then? “

They didn't. It's when Conrad Black started the National Post that most of this information started coming out — and kept coming out. As you know, Conrad Black is no friend of the Liberals, nor they of him. I'm a political/news junkie and I had never heard of Power Corporation or Maurice Strong before I started reading the Post, even though they'd been very influential in the Liberal Party and, therefore, Canadian politics, since the '70s.

But, let's look at the CBC, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and CTV, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, just to mention a few biggies in the Canadian media. The CBC, in particular because it is funded to the tune of $-one-billion of taxpayers' dollars/year, has been particularly “coy” in not exposing the Power Corporation/Liberal Party of Canada connection. They've spent million$ on the Mulroney/Schreiber boondoggle, which didn't even involve taxpayers' money, largely, I suspect, to plant in Canadians' minds suspicion about the CPC.

But, to my knowledge, the Fifth Estate hasn't produced one program on the Desmarais family's close ties with the Liberals (Trudeau, Chretien, Martin, Rae), nor the China connection of both organizations nor their connection to Maurice Strong who, in addition to his business dealings in China where he now lives, was front and centre in the UN's Oil for Food Scandal and was one of the masterminds of AGW, which has now been proven to be a hoax of Gargantuan proportions. Neither, to my knowledge, has Peter Mansbridge, on Mansbridge One on One, interviewed any of the main characters in this twisted tale or pointed out their intertwining business interests.

I'd love to be proven wrong. After all, isn't one of the mandates of the CBC to provide balanced coverage of issues of importance to all Canadians? In the case of the Liberal/Power Corporation connection not only has this not happened, Canadians watching the CBC wouldn't have a clue who the main players are or their ties to one another.

So, there's another bad smell, kenn2: The refusal of the vast majority of LPC-lapdog journos to expose the Liberal/Power Corporation connection. There's been a pattern of omission for almost 40 years and most Canadians will only learn about it through the National Post, possibly the Sun, and in the blogosphere.

You dodged the question.

Let me be more specific: since you seem to be acknowledging that at least one news outlet (Nat'l Pest) isn't a LPC lapdog…. blowing holes in the media bias thesis, but anyways… then the stench has been “smelt”, right… yet it's not exactly page one there… why hasn't this story gained traction, even there?

Your feeble attempt at a whitewash of Muloney speaks volumes. Taking bags of cash from a convicted fraudster doesn't concern you so much? Oh wait… wasn't YOUR money, so it's ok.

Better tell Harper that AGW is a hoax. He still thinks otherwise.

This whole “lefty media” moan is just a smokescreen.

kenn2: “You dodged the question. ” You're kidding, right?

Kenn2: “This whole “lefty media” moan is just a smokescreen.” For what?

Frankly, kenn2, I have real problems with Brian Mulroney. He's a Power Corporation alumni and, no, I'm not at all impressed by his dealings with Schreiber — but, again, he's a Power Corporation alumni and no stranger to business deals. I can't say that I've been surprised by Mulroney's deal with Schreiber but what does surprise me — if that's possible anymore — is the CBC's obsession with Mulroney/Schreiber when there are far bigger political fish to fry in the Liberal Party of Canada — and far bigger stakes involving the taking of far larger “bags of cash” (your quotes) from the Canadian taxpayers on the part of shady operatives of the LPC — and that's not news?

So, you think that when only ONE media outlet exposes the Liberal/Power Corporation connection, that's OK, that blows holes in the media bias thesis ? Not in my books. How come the other media outlets haven't reported on it? How come the CBC has kept MUM on this file?

It's clear that there's a lot of fear around the exposing this connection, otherwise why wouldn't more media outlets have done stories on it? It's an intriguing and somewhat mysterious subject and has been for years. There are lots of juicy stories to be told and they'd definitely sell a lot of papers and bring in a lot of viewers.

But, the Canadian media is silent.

Why?

Yeah, Liz.

Liberal Party of Canada = Nurturing Nanny from two to 92.

NO THANKS!

So, you think that when only ONE media outlet exposes the Liberal/Power Corporation connection, that's OK, that blows holes in the media bias thesis ? Not in my books. How come the other media outlets haven't reported on it? How come the CBC has kept MUM on this file?

Why?

I'm having an X-Files moment…

If there's a REAL story there, all Cdn media would be running with it. Like I said before, if there was something serious there, it would at least be front page on the Nat Post.

And it's not. Which leads me to think that there's not much to your “stench”, and you can't blame bias for that.

If you've got a better answer (that doesn't invoke media bias or aliens), I'd love to hear it. Why isn't it a credible story in the media?

Also, I don't think any Liberal PMs have been caught receiving literal “bags of cash” like Mellowrooney was. Not classy enough, I guess.

How about powerful special interests? (Come to think of it, Conrad Black's in jail for six years, rather a lengthy jail sentence for what he did. Hmmm.)

AdScam was going on long before the National Post came along to pull back the curtain. 'Wonder why it took a brand new newspaper to expose all the rot? AGW wasn't exposed as the hoax it is until a few months ago, and SDA and other conservative blogs were instrumental in exposing the made-up data and the fact that scientists who were skeptical of the data which, supposedly, verified man-made global warming, were marginalized and their experiments and studies purposely rejected for publication by the pro-AGW scientists and editors. The facts were there if some enterprising journo wanted to write about it, but the crowd was moving in a certain direction and it was easier, and exposed one to much less ridicule and opprobrium, to just go with the flow.

No aliens here, but I can't let the media off the hook. And, why should I? They weren't doing their job during the Trudeau/Chretien/Martin years and there are still a whole pile of MSM journalists with close connections to the LPC (sometimes they're related to or married to Liberal staffers).

As for your statement that you don't think that “any Liberal PMs have been caught receiving literal 'bags of cash' like Mellowrooney was, ” well, there are more ways to receive bags of cash than receiving them yourself. Ask Chretien. He had operatives in Italian restaurants doing the dirty work for him. Then there's Martin, who flew flags of convenience on the boats in his Canada Steamship Lines in order to avoid paying Canadian taxes. Hmmm. That's some kind of money grab, whether in brown bags or not.

It's Justice Gomery, isn't it, who after extensive investigation into the LPC modus operandi of AdScam talked about “a culture of corruption”? It stinks.

How come you can't smell it?

(Come to think of it, Conrad Black’s in jail for six years, rather a lengthy jail sentence for what he did. Hmmm.)

Ahh yes… because the evil Canadian Liberals’ influence extends all the way to the US justice system. Right.

Connie Black is a brilliant, well-spoken, arrogant plutocrat who willfully flouted legal and moral business ethics to enrich himself, and he got caught. Funny you’d choose to back him, yet attack Martin because, like just about every other shipping business in the world, his ships were registered under flags of convenience.

The lid was pretty much nailed on the sponsorship scandal by the Gomery report and by the results of the 2006 election. The major players have either been punished, discredited, or just plain retired. It’s over. Not “stinks” …stank. Move on.

oh… and from this link:
The Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper introduced the Federal Accountability Act which included new lobbying rules and electoral law reform; it was granted royal assent on December 12, 2006. Still unfulfilled are promises for a Public Appointments Commission and registrar for lobbyists which is an independent officer of Parliament

Way to clean house, Harpo. He’s getting very comfortable with all the tools of power you hate the Liberals for – proroguing, stonewalling, stacking the Senate, lack of accountability, attacking the whistle-blowers, and added his Ministry of Propaganda… I guess he wants to keep the rest of the Liberals’ old tools sharp as well, just in case… I wonder what’s hidden in his PMO.

We have an OPEN society (not counting downtown Toronto a couple of weekends ago) – if ONE media outlet unearths a genuine no-foolin’ scandal, the rest of the media has no option but to run with it. These endless “biased media” claims are just more Harperesque blaming the messenger. If Canadians really thought a particular outlet was biased, they wouldn’t patronize it, would they? (Excepting of course those consumers who think that any outlet is biased unless it completely reflects their own worldview right back to them. Sound familiar?)

With the Internet, and bloggers and a billion cameras, there’s absolutely no need to rely one one source for news, and no excuse for not digging into a story. Unfortunately, partisans are not given to research, they flock instead to echo chambers where their biases are nurtured, reinforced and expanded, just about shutting out reality.

Example – AGW: you choose to ignore a preponderance of scientific proof and concentrate on one chain of emails and that’s sufficient to call it a hoax.

(The human-caused climate change is currently slow and subtle enough that the changes may be indistinguishable from normal climate variance, which of course emboldens the deniers, but it’s happening all right and the effects are cumulative, and though you or I won’t live long enough to really see them, our kids and grandkids will, and they’ll wonder why we didn’t do ANYTHING about it.

Could you please write a letter to the future explaining how one string of leaked emails was sufficient to overturn the findings of thousands of scientists?)

Summary – ALL media is biased. Information is always caveat emptor, YOU have the responsibility for sorting it and making sense of it. Labelling an outlet biased doesn’t necessarily void the information. Labelling all outlets biased just means you’re flailing around (or too lazy to look) for arguments to refute a story you’re not happy about, and not finding much.

Actually it was an MP and indeed was found not to be the first time. But, it was made public, corrected and didn’t happen again. (lest you forget – Adscam, the Grand Mere affair, a $1 billon dollar gun registry, Shawinigate, the HRDC scandal etc etc etc). So you’re trying to compare a jaywalker (who was not the PM btw) with the Hell’s Angels.

Pearson’s fawning missive where he attribute all things good to the Liberals (It’s pretty amusing – I read it and was waiting for him the tell us how Liberals invented babies) is virtually impossible to reconcile with their past record. Once again, we see their penchant for being, and offering, brainwashing instead of fact. In a democracy, the citizen’s generally let the party know in elections when they have lost the justification for governing, but in any state with the appropriate legal measures in place, the Libs, by their record, should have lost the right to existance as a political party in this country. Trudeau, that lover of dictatorships, Cretin and Martin, were all proven to be almost pathological liars. “Let me be perfectly clear” Martin was famous for saying one thing in the morning to one audience and then the diametric opposite in the afternoon to another one – hense “Mr. Dithers”. Finally even the Liberal media was laughing at him though note that point had to be made by a foreign press – not ours. Arguably even if telling the truth wouldn’t have damaged him politically, Cretin wouldn’t have told it, because he just wasn’t wired to although running a platform on scrapping the GST and NAFTA, historically was probably the biggest concoction ever foisted on the Canadian Public.

Whether Pearson has no memory or no mind, the record and therefore the result is the same – the Corruption of the party (and the backroom staff are still the same people) is such that it needs a fumigation and rebuilding before it can again put itself before the public as a political entity. A friend who is a Chief of Staff for an NDP MP told me a few weeks ago that she thought the Liberal party was “in decline” or dying. I wouldn’t go that far – even the mafia has taken hard hits and recovered – but certainly hating and attacking the West, abandoning the North (and our Soverignty up there as well), Ontario finding out (OK, with the exception of Toronto – but it is a very dense city, Lol) that the hidden agenda was actually about good fiscal management and rebuilding the country and with the Bloc able to work only for provincial interests and against the rest of Canada it doesn’t leave them very much to appeal to. They can and do now fight with the NDP for the left, but Iggy won’t do that all the way because he may be a legend in his own mind, but he’s not completely stupid and knows that mathematically, the NDP consider one vote in five to be a success and he has a bigger vision than that. Frankly, they’d be better off to take the next two or three elections off, re-establish who they are and what they stand for and clean house of the present bunch.
At present they’ve actually managed to completely reverse JFK’s inaguural speech – rather than “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country” has been turned into precisely the opposite. The fact is that Conservatives are now Canada’s party while the Liberals are the party of greed – vote for us and we’ll pay you off at Canada’s expense. A sort of “We don’t need a Military or the North if it keeps us in power,” thing. Then they have to re-structure their backroom and then come back and fight for a new base, hoping the public will forget what they’ve done to us (and their name) for the last few decades.

I was just thinking how great it was to have a discussion without Ms Condescension and Hypocrisy and – voilà, there she was with her usual pointless and unsubstantive comment.

Sorry to correct you, big fella but Gayle supports the NDP but votes Liberal because she has no faith in her party ever winning. But she did give to our friend at the Dude Ranch. You know, I kind of miss the guy – his ego and pontifications were quite amusing and he made such a nice target for derision.

Ya like polls? Check out the latest Ekos…….kind of takes the air out of the tires on the Puffin Poop express eh?

Oh. Now we like polls here?

[in my best Clint Eastwood -Dirty Harry voice] Hmmm is this a trend, or a blip? Gonna call an election on this? Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?

Actually it was an MP not PM Harper and indeed was found not to be the first time. But, it was made public, corrected and didn't happen again. Lest you forget – Adscam, the Grand Mere affair, a $1 billon dollar gun registry, Shawinigate, the HRDC scandal etc etc etc). So you're trying to compare a jaywalker (who was not the PM) with the Hell's Angels.

Pearson's fawning missive where he attributes all things good to the Liberals (It's pretty amusing – I read it and was waiting for him to tell us how Liberals invented babies) is virtually impossible to reconcile with their past record. Once again, we see their penchant for being, and offering, brainwashing instead of fact. In a democracy, the citizen's generally let the Party know in elections when they have lost the justification for governing, but in any state with the appropriate legal measures in place, the Libs, by their record, should have lost the right to existance as a political party in this country. Trudeau, that lover of dictatorships, Cretin and Martin, were all proven to be almost pathological liars. “Let me be perfectly clear” Martin was famous for saying one thing in the morning to one audience and then the diametric opposite in the afternoon to another one – hense “Mr. Dithers”. Finally, even the Liberal media was laughing at him, though its important to note that that point had to be made by a foreign press – not ours. Arguably even if telling the truth wouldn't have damaged him politically Cretin wouldn't have told it, because he just wasn't wired to tell the truth – ever – although running a platform on scrapping the GST and NAFTA, historically, was probably the biggest concoction ever foisted on the Canadian Public.

Whether Pearson has no memory or no mind, the record and therefore the result is the same – the Corruption of the party (and the backroom staff are still the same people) is such that it needs a fumigation and rebuilding before it can again put itself before the public as a political entity. A friend who is a Chief of Staff for an NDP MP told me a few weeks ago that she thought the Liberal party was “in decline” or dying. I wouldn't go that far – even the mafia has taken hard hits and recovered – but certainly hating and attacking the West, abandoning the North (and our Soverignty up there as well), Ontario finding out (OK, with the exception of Toronto – but it is a very dense city, Lol) that the hidden agenda was actually about good fiscal management and rebuilding the country and with the Bloc able to work only for provincial interests and against the rest of Canada it doesn't leave them very much to appeal to. They can and do now fight with the NDP for the left, but Iggy won't do that all the way because he may be a legend in his own mind, but he's not completely stupid and knows that mathematically, the NDP consider one vote in five to be a success and he has a bigger vision than that. Frankly, they'd be better off to take the next two or three elections off, re-establish who they are and what they stand for and clean house of the present bunch.
At present, they've actually managed to completely reverse JFK's inaguural speech – rather than “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country” has been turned into precisely the opposite. (National Dayce – her we come again – but in the twenty years they've been campaigning on that red herring – they have never delivered. We've all heard the fool me once, fool me twice thing, but what do you call someone who has been “fooled” a dozen times? They say that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results – that doesn't say much for those who keep voting Liberal, no?
The fact is that Conservatives are now Canada's party while the Liberals are the party of greed – vote for us and we'll pay you off at Canada's expense. A sort of “We don't need a Military or the North if it keeps us in power,” thing. Then they have to re-structure their backroom and then come back and fight for a new base, hoping the public will forget what they've done to us (and their own name) for the last few decades. To that extent, Pearson has a point.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

I don't think wit was Doug M's intent. Putting before Liberal defenders the dismal LPC record and what this party needs to do to get back into the ring is more what he was getting at.

I've found that whenever Liberal defenders are faced with a list of LPC misdemeanors (and crimes) they either answer with a one-liner, nonsequitur or don't bother to answer at all.

“These endless 'biased media' claims are just more Harperesque blaming the messenger.”

Not at all, kenn2. I've been monitoring the Canadian media for over 30 years, long before Stephen Harper had even become a politician. Much of it then was left-lib-leaning and still is. I'm grateful for the National Post and the blogs, which is where I am likely to see more balanced reporting: views from all sides of the political spectrum.

I don't ask that all media outlets agree with my POV, but I sure as heck want there to be some genuine debate, not mindless cheerleading for one party only, accompanied by a steady stream of put-downs of the opposing party. This is the definition of the CBC which is funded by ALL Canadians.

Yup – and where I come from their is another saying – “Opinions are like a**holes – everybody has one” . I'm retired, I have plenty of time to poke holes in Lieberal BS. And when I do it, I do it in a way that provides detail so it is clear its not just mindless drivel or “opinion” – the way Lieberals have turned into their trademark. So if you want to keep from getting slapped (in detail), do what you said you were trying to do earlier – stay clear. I know that as a Lieberal, there should be no expectation of anything you say being true, but there it is. You see, sometimes it is the witless who remain brief so that the depths of their ignorance is not put on display…

You're right, it was a throw-away comment. It was late, the room was stuffy. Do forgive me.

Within your thesis are some genuine points that are valid criticisms of past Liberal governments. But your spin, hyperbole, insults and vitriol make it not worth the effort to clean them up enough to discuss rationally. Ain't a shovel big enough to clear away the mess. You're just preaching to the choir, repeating right-wing catechisms to the faithful.

Regardless of what I'd say, you'd just end up calling me a Lieberal anyway.

Carry on.

I'm grateful for the National Post and the blogs, which is where I am likely to see more balanced reporting: views from all sides of the political spectrum.

You're busted.

First, despite the relentless indiscriminate howls of media lefty bias, you still cite the Natl Post as a trusted source. So I guess not all media are left biased? It also escapes you that the Natl Post is right-biased, and no closer to 'balanced' than the outlets you defame. Clearly you won't be happy til every outlet is the Natl Post. So you really aren't against media bias, just bias you disagree with.

Most damning – you cite blogs as a source of balanced reporting. This clearly shows that you have absolutely no desire for balance, you're simply seeking places that share and reinforce your viewpoint. Like here. The only 'truths' that permeate slanted blogs are those that serve the cause, and, if the truth doesn't fit… well you'll just trim and bend and embroider to make it fit, or you'll attack the bringer, or just ignore it altogether. Yelling 'media bias' seems to be a favourite dodge around here.

I've chosen to stay off of blogs that align with my viewpoints, for that very reason. I know they're biased . I haunt blogs of those I disagree with, and try to see through their bias to find their truths. After 2 years, it's been enlightening, but it's failed to convert me.

“It also escapes you that the Natl Post is right-biased, and no closer to 'balanced' than the outlets you defame. “

Nope. It doesn't escape me. What many right-biased articles in the National Post do is provide some balance to the largely left-biased articles, especially on political themes, in Canada's other MSM.

“Most damning – you cite blogs as a source of balanced reporting. This clearly shows that you have absolutely no desire for balance …” So, how would you know, kenn2, what blogs I'm referring to? You, clearly, have no idea what blogs I go to, so how can you possibly make such a sweeping condemnation of my perspective? I'm not surprised, however, because this is one of the chief modi operandi of l/Liberals: sweeping and negative generalizations based on … very little evidence.

I'm not trying to convert you, kenn2, just expose you to reality in Canada, in what Trudeaupia over the past 40 years has turned into a deranged and dystopian Dominion. His socialist madness is slowly being turned around, no thanks to Chretien, Martin, Dion, Ignatieff, Rae and co. and no thanks to our slumbering media who, as long as the Librano$ were in office, were delighted to support the status quo which meant no deep digging or investigative journalism.

At least the blogs have exposed a lot of the rot and have given background to some pretty nefarious goings-on — you know, the Liberal$' “culture of corruption?,” which a lot of us knew existed but couldn't quite get at because our media weren't reporting the facts, just their spin on their party of choice. Because of the National Post and blogs, we now know a lot more about Trudeau's NEP, his bilingualism and multiculturalism propaganda, Chretien's running on eliminating the GST and re-writing NAFTA and the various scandals of his government –the HRDC scandal, Shawinigate, the billion-dollar boondoggle of the long gun registry, the Auberge Grand-Mère affair, AdScam, etc., all of which the “old” media might have reported on, but certainly seemed fairly comfortable with and on which they did no in-depth reporting or analysis. Canadians were being lulled into a Liberals-are-the-only-viable-choice-for-government trance until the National Post and blogs came along.

'Too bad, like most l/Liberals, kenn2, you don't support a more open and level playing field in your defense of the old media paradigm. Let's face it: The old paradigm was a haven for Liberal corruption dressed up as liberal democracy. It's not so comfortable to have the windows opened and to have a fresh breeze blowing through the place.

But, I — and a lot of Canadians — like it!

Hmmm, You know, for a guy who chucks out words like “sociopath, nutbar and old crackpot” methinks you doth protest too much. Rather precisely like the schoolyard bully who thinks its fun as hell to pound on others, but gets really sensitive when it comes back on him. Suggest you go back and take a look at some of your posts on here. “hyperbole, insults and vitriol?” Pot – kettle – black. In addition, you just posted a reply to another one of mine pointing out that I'm not spouting the party line, so “repeating right-wing catechisms to the faithful” doesn't really cut it either, but pardon me for pointing out the rather obvious errors.
Without belabouring the issue, I played in the international arena for over 35 years. I'll tell you that if the Canadian public ever knew how badly the Liberals damaged and hurt us as a nation, they would have been hunted down in the streets and lynched – and that would have been done by their supporters. It still continues; witness Iggys' flip flops on everything from torture to “Israeli war crimes” . I have no idea whether pathological liars are just naturally drawn to the Liberal party, or time spent within that party turns one into a pathological liar, nor do I care, but its pretty difficult to assume that when it comes to their transgressions, there is a such thing as hyperbole. Frankly, I can see someone belonging to the Dippers – not very bright maybe, but they haven't done the damage or demonstrated the depth of corruption the Liberals have. Whether you're a card carrying Liberal or not, I also don't care, but it you have any moral basis at all, hanging with them should leave one feeling like they need a shower. So, far be it from me to quantify you – you tell us – are you a Lieberal??

Humans are complex beings, Doug.

Take… you, for example. One day you can be shaking your fist, shouting “Shoot the rioters” then pretending that I've misunderstood you, another day you can deliver a long, lopsided but mostly coherent thesis that moves nicely from this thread's subject through to a summary of your case against the federal Liberals, to a comment that is breathtakingly opposite to the party line on the Middle East crisis.

are you a Lieberal?

Have you stopped beating your wife? Same sort of question, given the build-up.

For the record, I do not belong to, nor have I recently given money to any of the federal parties.

“Humans are complex beings, Doug. ” No! Really? Gee, thanks for that. The point is, that simply telling the truth, whether about a platform, a position, or a transgression is really not that complicated. Simple morality is not that complicated. People, I acknowledge can be. Like youself…You start off a post with a snide and condensending insult, then, when proven to be wrong with a quick quote from the CCC, you try to hold to your point by using semantical gimmicks about just “breaking windows” even when clearly in error and all rational people would have just admitted they were wrong. Then, you finally concur with precisely what I said to begin with, but haven't the gumption to admit it, pretending that we just “cleared it up”. As I said in my post on the ME, the CPC party only rigidly adheres to “the party line” in the medias construct and the simple minds who believe it, a fact this blog, which accepts opposing comment (you still haven't found me a Liberal one which does – try Kinsella's for a real laugh) proves daily.
And finally, my wife is an exquisite creature, lovely, animated and gentle. 5'2″ and 116 pounds soaking wet, she has been my love, my rock and my very best friend for lo, these past 33 years. And if I ever struck her, I'd lay even odds that they would never even find my body.

So coherence is not your strong point. Complex? Perhaps, yet many people can be read like a book. Single minded, they believe only what they are told by the Toronto based CBC or Tor Star and hold to that with the ferocity of a barnacle clinging to a rock regardless of tons of proof to the contrary, because that is what they want to hear. I think the word you're looking for is pathological.

So you're still insisting you didn't advocate the shooting of rioters?

Oh Geezus – “1. If- (a) the peace officer is proceeding lawfully to arrest, with or without warrant, the person to be arrested;(b) the offence for which the person is to be arrested is one for which that person may be arrested without warrant;(c) the person to be arrested takes flight to avoid arrest;(d) the peace officer or other person using the force believes on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the purpose of protecting the peace officer, the person lawfully assisting the peace officer or any other person from imminent or future death or grievous bodily harm; and(e) the flight cannot be prevented by reasonable means in a less violent manner:Then I’m absolutely fine with him shooting a rioter, or a bomber, before he kills someone else. As to whether he “should” – I’d leave that up to the guys on the street – if someone was setting fire to a car full of gas in the middle of a bunch of peaceful protestors who might be killed, or setting a bomb “in protest” – and he let ‘er rip, by all means I’d support that. As would, I think any reasonably sane person. Now, assuming this attempt to go around the merry go round again was a diversion to avoid the issues raised in this thread, have you yet found a Lieberal blog which allows input like this one? Immediate and uncensored? As the master of “hyperbole, insults and vitriol” who is so unseemly sensitive to blowback, would you by chance care to refute any of the items raised in the Liberal litany of disasters? Can you , God willing offer any actual rebuttal to the facts raised that, while the CPC may not be precisely perfect, trying to compare them to the Liberals is in fact trying to trying to compare, as I said before “a jaywalker with the Hell’s Angels.” Because the sole thing you’ve offered so far that can be agreed upon, is that when it comes to the Lieberals, – “Ain’t a shovel big enough to clear away the mess.” Clearly then, you would argue for disbandment of the whole, corrupt shebang. Perhaps that’s why they are so desparately afraid of mandatory sentencing – they see themselves in the prisoners dock.

Oh Geezus – “1. If- (a) the peace officer is proceeding lawfully to arrest, with or without warrant, the person to be arrested;(b) the offence for which the person is to be arrested is one for which that person may be arrested without warrant;(c) the person to be arrested takes flight to avoid arrest;(d) the peace officer or other person using the force believes on reasonable grounds that the force is necessary for the purpose of protecting the peace officer, the person lawfully assisting the peace officer or any other person from imminent or future death or grievous bodily harm; and(e) the flight cannot be prevented by reasonable means in a less violent manner:Then I’m absolutely fine with him shooting a rioter, or a bomber, before he kills someone else. As to whether he “should” – I’d leave that up to the guys on the street – if someone was setting fire to a car full of gas in the middle of a bunch of peaceful protestors who might be killed, or setting a bomb “in protest” – and he let ‘er rip, by all means I’d support that. As would, I think any reasonably sane person. Now, assuming this attempt to go around the merry go round again was a diversion to avoid the issues raised in this thread, have you yet found a Lieberal blog which allows input like this one? Immediate and uncensored? As the master of “hyperbole, insults and vitriol” who is so unseemly sensitive to blowback, would you by chance care to refute any of the items raised in the Liberal litany of disasters? Can you , God willing offer any actual rebuttal to the facts raised that, while the CPC may not be precisely perfect, trying to compare them to the Liberals is in fact trying to trying to compare, as I said before “a jaywalker with the Hell’s Angels.” Because the sole thing you’ve offered so far that can be agreed upon, is that when it comes to the Lieberals, – “Ain’t a shovel big enough to clear away the mess.” Clearly then, you would argue for disbandment of the whole, corrupt shebang. Perhaps that’s why they are so desparately afraid of mandatory sentencing – they see themselves in the prisoners dock.

It pains me to say this, and no doubt it will be the last time I ever have to, but Boconuts is right.

Actually, and perhaps inadvertently, Mr. Person does demonstrate with clarity one of the primary differences between the Liberals and the Conservatives. In his quote “it was assumed that people lived for the sake of the State and its rulers. Suddenly Liberals were saying that the opposite was true….” Pearson illuminates how as a party, they have managed to take JFK’s words from his Inaugural speech “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country” and turn it precisely on its head.

In the Liberal Party we see, the Country does not exist to be venerated loved or served, but only in so far as it can be bled for what can be squeezed out of it. In the Liberal world, there is no sense of the state for the common protection or good; no service before self for country or community. To the Liberals, people who serve both the smaller and larger community, the Military, Police or Emergency services like Firefighters or Paramedics, are rubes or drones, tolerated only to serve the faithful.

The Liberal party of Canada is not for Canada at all, illuminates Pearson, but for individual greed – the importance of country is defined by what you can get out of it, not what you can contribute. Vote for them and they will build not the country, but your coffers in reward. No wonder that so much of their previous record is one of disastrous fiscal policy infringing on Provincial jurisdiction, the rape of the countries coffers in order to pay off their friends and buy votes to the detriment of the Country economically and nationally. What party stands for Canada? Certainly not the Liberal one. Election slogans are supposed to be relevant, but given Mr. Pearson’s words, maybe “Stand up for Canada” was the truest one in Conservative history.