When you call someone a liar, particularly a Prime Minister, the use of the word represents rock bottom. Prior, media has worked around the margins, always careful not to cross the line, but now the word has entered the discourse. It was actually quite remarkable to watch a Sun Media representative refer to the government as "dark".
You can't massage the past week, and calling the Prime Minister a liar speaks to objective meltdown. The dishonesty and duplicity is so striking that there is no grey area, no room for partisan spin or dis-information. The Prime Minister lies in the House of Commons, in reference to Dion and bilingualism. The Prime Minister lies during an announcement, absolving Tory culpability on Doan. The Prime Minister's office sends out a outrageous directive to committee chair's that contradicts every single statement made in parliament by the government over the last weeks.
What other word is available? There is real, long-lasting damage being done to this government's reputation, you don't easily recover, no matter the tactics. Once you have lost the moral high ground, which was you supposed cornerstone, you are in trouble. Once you lose a sense of trust, wherein your words are hollow and downright embarrassing, you are critical.
I remember earlier this spring, much of the criticism of Harper revolved around the fact that he still hadn't made an impression on Canadians in a fundamental way. "Mystery man", enigma, Canadians hadn't quite figured the man out. Concurrently, the Conservatives were embarking on their campaign to frame Dion, in a decidedly negative light, before he had a chance to define himself.
I would argue that the past weeks represent the framing of Stephen Harper. The themes are almost universal, echoed by normally sympathetic sources, and most of them are not kind. The unknown becomes conventional wisdom, and once that occurs, just like the Tory attempt with Dion, it is quite difficult to shake. This session of parliament might just be the watershed moment in the career of Stephen Harper, from which he never fully recovers.
4 comments:
A control freak.
Someone who has a control fetish.
I am actually kind of glad the conservatives won a minority government. No longer can they "harp" at the liberal government about ethics and accountability. The NDP are the only ones left on the moral high ground.
I knew Harper was a brazen liar after he covered up the CPC created Grewal fraudulent accusations of Senate Seat selling for MP votes two years ago now. At the very minimum he lied to cover up CPC wrongdoing by blaming it all on the Liberal war room and the Liberal media bias/conspiracy against CPCers. This despite from the moment of initial recording until the May 31 2005 edited recordings release (vouched for by Harper et al as full complete and unedited when in reality it was missing 35 minutes to the 75 released May 31 2005) the recordings were solely in CPC hands. At worst he was a knowing participant in the fraud, but either way he covered up a serious criminal slander against his political opposition from within his own party that made him and his party open to potential charges rather than show responsibility and accountability by exposing the editor(s) and apologizing for trusting them when they clearly lied to him.
After that point it became obvious to me that Harper will lie about anything to make his party look better and/or his opposition to look worse. His record in government only has underscored this preference towards lying. So the instruction manual for CPC Chairs to manipulate and prevent the Parliamentary committees from doing their proper job of oversight of the sitting government (whomever they currently are) is no surprise, although it does sicken me to have my worst fears about Harper being proven out like this. I did not want to believe that he could be as bad as my fears counselled me he was, yet he has managed it and more, at times he has exceeded my worst fears for what he would try to do with power, and given how dark my opinion of him was prior to his attaining power this is no small feat.
scotian
We knew he was a liar, but now the good news, the reference has hit mainstream :)
Post a Comment