Wednesday, February 18, 2009

You Sir, Have No Peer

I guess the only question that matters, can Harper get away with it? In terms of sheer gall, Harper's dizzying spin on the climate change file is almost without precedent. You're reading it, but you can't actually believe he's saying it, and you wonder how it's possible anybody could swallow it. Steve:
Obama's climate policy a positive change, Harper says

Barack Obama's presidency is ushering in a new era of North American co-operation against climate change after George W. Bush's inaction held back Canada's ability to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions, Stephen Harper says.

...the Prime Minister insisted that Canada's climate-change policy has been hamstrung by the inaction of its largest trading partner.

“In Canada, we've been wrestling for the last decade or so with our desire to try to have a regime, a regulatory regime, that would diminish our own carbon emissions. But we've been trying to do so in an integrated economy when the United States has not been willing to do so,” Mr. Harper said in an interview to be broadcast in two parts yesterday and today.

“I think quite frankly the fact that we have a President and an administration that wants to see some kind of regulation on this is an encouragement.”

If you were to ask any international delegation in the world, which country they would consider Bush's best ally within the climate change debate, Canada's name would come up every time, almost immediately. Canada has been such a "laggard" we've actually achieved the unfathomable, collecting more dinosaur awards in Bali than brother Bush. We're the country of "inspirational" targets, we're the one's who have changed the time lines, the baselines, talked of "intensity", that's "made in Canada".

The fact this character has the audacity to snuggle up to Obama, as though he's waited in the wings, finally, finally a dance partner, represents a new threshold in pure, unmitigated bullshit. You sir, have no peer. Stephen Harper actually believes he can move from Bush's sidekick saboteur to Obama's policy twin and nobody will notice. This nonsense is a test, it's a fundamental point, because if Harper is allowed to expouse this line, along with his surrogates (Prentice today, just simply amazed at how close the two countries really are on global warming), then it's true- you can do and say anything, repetition becomes reality. What Harper is saying, the whole argument, it's simply offensive, these clowns should be blushing when they utter the words.

14 comments:

saii said...

Harper longing for a "climate regime?" Wow. Just a few months ago he was denying greenhouse emissions, stalling climate talks in Canada and internationally, and proudly promoting his "Made-in-Canada" BS climate policies. Now he's saying that he's been fighting for the environmental clause? Not a single media outlet mentions this?

I really wonder why my conservative friends think that the media is biased to the liberals.

Anonymous said...

Canada once stood for defender of human rights and advocate of progressive measures regarding the environment.

Thanks to the Conservatives, as you said, now we stand as the exact opposite.

It's interesting to see that while the US, with the election of Obama, have moved from extreme right to somewhere more reasonably center (one can surely not dream of talking "left" about the US), other governments on the planet are stuck with right winged governments. Take for instance Canada, France, Germany...

Anonymous said...

Note also that Obama has not signed up to Kyoto. He has endorsed the California plan somewhat, something that Harper has yet to move on as a start.

sassy said...

A reminder of why the lies.

Jerry Prager said...

Has Elizabeth May said back in the TV debates "It's called fraud."

Anonymous said...

Haha, I saw this too, and was actually going to do a post on it but you beat me to it.

This is my favourite line:

In Canada, we've been wrestling for the last decade or so with our desire to try to have a regime, a regulatory regime, that would diminish our own carbon emissions

Who is we in that sentence? The man has balls, give him that.

JimmE said...

Olaf...
"The man has balls, give him that."
I would ague he no longer knows/cares when he lies.

JimmE said...

Olaf...
"The man has balls, give him that."
I would ague he no longer knows/cares when he lies.

900ft Jesus said...

sassy is right. I add that we spend far to much time discussing how or why Steve does what he does, and how anyone can be such a bald-faced liar.

He's a malignant narcissist and that kind of creature can't be assessed by tools used to analyze normal people.

As for the man having balls, I don't agree this takes guts of any kind. Steve has shown himself to be a coward time and again, hiding behind his ministers, blaming others, proroguing parliament, avoiding the press, avoiding exposing himself to any situation over which he has little to no control...

This is just another chicken-shit move to suck up for votes, dodging the reality of his own earlier stance, breaking his promises to his nut case base.

Sucking up isn't ballsey. And you can't ever, ever trust a brown-noser.

Anonymous said...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate?Results&id=123555&pollid=123555&tf=ctv%2Fgeneric%2Fhubs%2FctvNewsSub.html&cf=ctv%2Fgeneric%2Fhubs%2FctvNews.cfg&hub=TopStories&subhub=VoteResult

People care.

JimmE said...

.... Um Trent, your link tells me 61% think 15 minutes is fine. Whatever. So either this changed since your post; or, your point is the TORY's-in-PJ's-in-Mum's-basement set have nothing better to do.

Steve V said...

Olaf

Does that mean he's absolving the past Liberal regime, as well as himself?

Anonymous said...

Uh, yeah Jimbo, 15 minutes which is FIVE minutes less than the 20 minutes Iffy is blathering childishly about. In other words, 61% of the people who took part think that he doesn't need more than 15 minutes and 39% think it "only fair" that he get 20.

You can go back to sleep now Jimbo.

Steve V said...

Trent

And you can return to your coma, using an online poll as representative of anything. Geez.

BTW, Iggy got 25 minutes :)