Posted by Jerry Brown on 6/5/2004, 8:49 pm, in reply to "Issues relevant this time around" Quote of the day "You know, guys, there's something called dying with dignity. This isn't." -Warren Kinsella, Liberal strategist estranged from the Martinites, caption on his Web site accompanying a photograph of John McCallum, Liberal veterans affairs minister, ambushing Stephen Harper. Majority-eliminating comments, Liberals Division "It is my vision and it is one that I will be asking Canadians to accept. Now if they don't, they don'tÂ…" -Paul Martin on Wednesday, offering the National Post the opportunity for its distorted headline the next day: "Prime Minister Admits Defeat Is Possible." "Since he became leader on November 15, the opposition parties had a single objective, which is to hurt his credibility and convince Canadians that he is dishonest and that he is a thief." -Helene Scherrer, federal heritage minister and co-chair of the Liberal campaign, on Wednesday, upgrading the accusations against Paul Martin from mere negligence in failing to thwart Chretien-era scandals to having personally profited from them. Scherrer tells the Globe and Mail the Liberals' adversaries have successfully branded Martin a "highway robber" - a new epithet for the PM that had crossed no one's lips till now. "I don't think he's a good politician, in the sense that he can't attack the others and be demagogic. It's hard for him in an election campaign that is being fought below the belt. He is not good when it comes to playing that gameÂ…He wants everyone to love him." -Scherrer again, weighing in on Paul Martin's compromised leadership skills. "There was very little truth" to the allegations that Liberal headquarters ordered John McCallum and Judy Sgro to ambush Stephen Harper, the Liberals' deputy national director, Steven McKinnon, tells the Globe and Mail. Okay, so there's only some truth to them. "We did ask them in those particular circumstances, yes, and Mr. Martin was unawareÂ…we asked those people in those circumstances to go and to confront Mr. Harper." -David Herle, Liberal campaign manager, in a CPAC interview Wednesday, showing McKinnon to be economical with the truth, and making a liar out of Judy Sgro, who told the Globe and Mail Wednesday she was under no instructions from Martin Central. "[I] wouldn't have advised it. This campaign is going to be won or lost on trust and credibility. You have to ask yourself 'Does this add trust or credibility to the Martin campaign?'" -Patrick Gossage, one-time Trudeau flack recruited this week by the Martin brain trust to assist with damage control, in the same Globe report, confiding his misgivings about the Martinites to the world, and helping keep the ambush story alive. "The NDP's moving in the right direction, and I hope the Liberals will be doing the same." -Justin Thompson, Liberal candidate in Calgary West, endorsing Jack Layton's scheme for 10,000 wind turbines across the country. Thompson might better have noted only that his own governing party has quadrupled funding for wind-power projects. "It's very two-edged. The dangerous edge for the government is that it reminds people that there's a problem. The helpful side of it is that it demonstrates responsible action, to recover [the money], to hold [people] accountable, to find facts and to make sure it never happens again." -Stephen Owen, Martin's public works minister, keeps the Adscam pot boiling, telling the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson on Thursday about "political involvement at the highest levels" of the Chretien government in the sponsorship scandal, and warning of possible civil actions against former Chretien government staff "as soon as possible" - perhaps during the election campaign. How these glad tidings square with the Martin camp's recent desperate efforts to mend fences with the Chretienites is anyone's guess. Gadzooks! A blogger covering Martin's platform unveiling in Windsor, Ont. earlier this week looks out the window and is startled by the chance appearance of a Canada Steamship Lines freighter plying the Detroit River. This was dutifully reported on the blog, by CTV, and the Globe and Mail in a roundup of campaign highlights. Wake up, people! Windsorites keep time by routine passage of CSL ships. Or would these same folks see opportunities for irony as commuter shuttles chugged by every 20 minutes during an Ontario transport minister's photo-op at a GO Train station? More evidence, as if Windsorites needed it, that Toronto hasn't a clue about their obscure burg. (Hint: They're Tigers fans. Always were. Always will be.) Mackenzie King was once treated by Windsor MP Paul Martin Sr. to a motor ride along Ouelette Avenue, the main drag. Martin stopped the car at the crest of the street, and let the PM admire the vista. "I had absolutely no idea what a spectacular metropolis this was" said King. "Indeed it is, Prime Minister," said Martin. "We've had a remarkable building boom here due to your policies." From that perspective on Ouelette, it was impossible for King to make out the narrow river that is the boundary between Canada and the U.S. And it was a long while before Martin confessed to King that he was in fact appraising the 28-storey head-office tower of the J.L. Hudson department-chain and other majestic landmarks of the Detroit skyline. One man's bigot Blogger Norman Spector wrote earlier this week: "Thank God both Paul Martin and Stephen Harper took Sunday off: it should spare us any attacks on the Conservative leader for his religious beliefs, such as the bigotry penned yesterday by the Toronto Star's David Olive. (I quote: 'So it falls to the press, if they can tear themselves away from certain distractions, to ask Harper exactly what he meant last year when he wrote: 'While retaining a focus on economic issues, we must give greater place to social values and social conservatism, broadly defined and properly understood.' What is the evangelical Christian Tory leader saying here?')" John Ivison, national affairs columnist for the National Post (subscription only), wrote yesterday that internal divisions over abortion are not unique to the Tories. "Two Liberals have already tried, unsuccessfully, to introduce private member's bills related to abortion - one by Tom Wappel and another by Don Boudria. But Paul Martin, despite his own strong Catholic faith, has said that he supports a woman's right to choose." And Post reporters Anne Dawson and Robert Fife noted yesterday that "Mr. Harper has struggled to portray his newly formed united-right organization as a moderate party that has shed the extreme views that many Canadians associate with those two previous incarnations. Many members of the new party, however, are deeply religious and hold strong moral views against abortion and same-sex marriage and in favour of the death penalty." When is it bigotted to refer to a politician's spiritual beliefs? When the reference appears in the Toronto Star, apparently, and not the National Post, where Spector is a columnist.
Jun. 5, 2004. 09:38 AM
Day 14: Loose Libs sink ships
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1086433216110
