Finley emerged from a Conservative caucus meeting to blast as "straight out of academic fantasyland" a Liberal proposal for a 360-hour minimum work requirement for employment insurance benefits.
"I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to find common ground, but the Liberals are going to have to move off this 360. Nine weeks work just is not enough. It's an academic fantasyland right now."
The Liberals better move on this 360 requirement, a line in the sand has been drawn. It's just so absurd that these pipsqueaks, armed with their CRAP get to spout to the media and they get their headlines. This latest illustration is so patently false, the media is really OBLIGATED to point to the dishonesty.
Last week Ignatieff said the Liberals have a "certain flexibility on 360". Ignatieff's spokesman referred to the requirement as a "starting point in negotations". In the sky is blue world this translates to CLEAR language that the Liberals aren't in the posture Finlay suggests, and yet here we see another Conservatives spewing the garbage. Oh sure, a member of the media pointed out the inconsistency in Finlay's argument, but it's no matter, the wanted headline is published- "Tory minister blasts Liberal EI demand as 'fantasyland". Somebody ought to "blast" this hyper partisanship when it's supposed to be about EI.
You know, if you want to chide politicians from their crass behavior and dubious motives, it might help if you didn't perpetuate the CRAP you constantly decry by giving it a vehicle. You want a different kind of politics, then the headlines should read "Finlay's fantasyland argument doesn't match facts: Tories playing games with EI". That's the bottomline, but mission accomplished, LAP IT UP. Mmmmm, goood! Can't wait for the next editorial board commentary on the lowly state of our political discourse.
8 comments:
I have to give you credit Steve for perserverance.
I gave up on our MSM a long time ago with regard to their being consistant. It is a simple fact that they just do not do consistant.
The Conservatives know that and the exploit that fact all of the time.
Either the Liberals have not figured this out yet or they have decided not to exploit that fact. We will see if that actually works.
At any rate, I gave up caring what the MSM said a long time ago and have learned to ignore them. It is only when their inconsistancy becomes extreme that I will comment.
Media balance: print side a's falsehoods, but print side b's falsehoods too.
See, balance!
You don't see? Well, it makes sense to we in the media...
I find myself chuckling because I find myself pretty much directly between the position of Steve's post and ottlib's response - both of which are very good.
I think the media ought to get the crap thrown in their face each time they play parrot, which is how I see them these days. Yet, I'm long past believing they will ever change. It's normal mode now. They just don't even recognize it.
I thought the observation someone made about Walter Cronkite last week was fitting. They essentially pointed out how ironic it was that the media were offering fawning praise and respect to him without even remotely recognizing how they fail to meet the standards for which they praised him.
TO be fair.. at least 1 media personality on Macleans is asking the same thing of Finley: whats the problem?
The media is a flea circus (with apologies to the flee circus circuiteers), they have no backbone, no professional integrity, and the worse part of it is, they are still pretending to objectivity, if we could just go back to the good old days when there were Liberal papers and conservative papers, and everyone knew they were reading bias. The TV news are shoddy. It's the destruction of independent journalism by conglomerate chains that destroyed media. Though I can still remember Don Newman going toe to toe with Mad Dog Baird over Tory lies about the nature of Canadian democracy during the proroguement scandal: the last stand of Canadian journalism.
Absurdity? The current Feds aren't even the Feds anymore. So who are they?
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090729/Baird_Infrastructure_090729/20090729?hub=QPeriod
I gave up on them a long time ago too, but that doesn't mean I still don't notice or get peeved :)
I'm not even sure I blame the politicians anymore, because most of what they do is done with media consideration in mind. All the "games", the lack of forthright commentary, angling, posturing, it's all developed because of how things are reported, the optics. You look at "rookie" politicians, that speak freely and openly, they get destroyed, so they learn media speak, they learn to avoid controversy, they learn to spew talking points, they learn that right is secondary to appearances. It's sad.
Ottlib has it right. When your good enough to control the message then your good enough to be in power. Mr Chretien was a master at it. The Cons are getting there.
The Libs better learn and fast.
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