Categories: Andrew Coyne

Underplayed story of the day

The Globe plays this story on page 10 (at least in the B.C. edition),…

by Andrew Coyne on Saturday, June 7, 2008 2:57pm - 0 Comments

The Globe plays this story on page 10 (at least in the B.C. edition), below a giggler on the dum-da-dum-da-dum fracas:

Dion rejects Liberal pleas to trigger election

Ranking members of the Liberal caucus this week repeatedly pushed Stéphane Dion to trigger a federal election campaign next week, but the Liberal Leader rebuffed their pleas, sources say…

With the scandal over former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier setting the Conservatives on the defensive and concerns about an economic downturn, a heavyweight group of the party’s most influential MPs argued in internal meetings this week that the Liberals have a window of opportunity for an election.

They included foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff, House Leader Ralph Goodale, Whip Karen Redman, finance critic John McCallum, and justice critic Dominic LeBlanc, according to multiple Liberal sources.

Question: Why this sudden enthusiasm for a summer election? (Couillard? Yeah, right.) And why are we hearing about this, with virtually every single major player in caucus mentioned, by name? This has the whiff of mutiny to it…

Tags: dion, election, liberals

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Anon

Nobody from the Quebec side, though.
Ray

You may be right about this mutiny. The Liberals are supposed to have a meeting with Dion this weekend. Will they bring down government Monday?

Kudos to http://www.nationalnewswatch.com for linking to this blog.
M Anderson

Some blog (3 paragraphs). You must have more information than this.
http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

The only thing the Liberals could possibly hope to gain is to remove Dion, lose the election, and hope that they have enough talent left to re-build the Liberal party into something that stands for something – anything.

I predict that the Liberals will be back in power about the same time we land a man on Mars, give or take a decade.
http://farnwide.blogspot.com/ Steve V

“Nobody from the Quebec side, though.”

The Quebec wing has already had their mutiny, there will never be an occasion when they are clamoring for an election under Dion.
Sandi

This neverending, day in day out, talk about the “inside” of Liberal caucus is getting annoying and boring.

What’s happening inside the NDP or Tory caucus? I’d like to know.

Are there any journalists out there that want to work for a living and bring us some decent articles? Are there any journalists out there that are not partisan.

Desparate need for:

- journalists that actually work for a living the do some research and really tell us something important
- journalists and are non-partisan – look at things objectively – as they are without their biases included.

- Journalists, period.
Honey Pot

I bet they are kicking Dion’s arse to the curb as we type. I got a feeling they are eye-balling that young Justin Trudeau. They know he can hand them the martian vote on a silver hub cab.
Dayton

When is Charlie “Dion” Brown going to pick up his toys and go home???
Glen

Sandi, are you saying the media is anti Liberal? Geez, try being Conservative for a while, feel the love.
Observant

It will be a ‘new’ Liberal party after they resolve this ‘tiff’ over election/no election .. particularly since most of Dion’s ‘Dream Team’ want to go to the polls this July.

If Dion wants to present himself as the strong leader, he will have to shuffle his ‘shadow cabinet’ and assign files to new faces.

Garth Turner for finance critic .. anybody ..??!!!
D

No, I would say the underplayed story of the day (from Macleans’ point of view) was the Globe and Mail article (page 3 of the Saturday paper) about The Walrus dominating the National Magazine Awards, for the third year running.

I guess it isn’t that pleasant for Macleans to candidly note how pitifully behind they are in the quality journalism game, and to try to change for the better. Instead, they continue to inflict crap like Mark Steyn’s hateful, unfunny dross on the Canadian public.
http://chuckercanuck.blogspot.com chuckercanuck

oh man, reading the reactions to this post, I think Andrew’s probably right. the best reaction to this blog entry – not article – would be cool indifference if this speculation hit close to home. hostility, from my view, seems like a no-win strategy.
JK

Sandi says

“This neverending, day in day out, talk about the “inside” of Liberal caucus is getting annoying and boring.”

Um, sandi I think the point is that……

from Coyne’s post:

“They included foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, Deputy Leader Michael Ignatieff, House Leader Ralph Goodale, Whip Karen Redman, finance critic John McCallum, and justice critic Dominic LeBlanc, according to multiple Liberal sources”

These are not sources, these are liberal party names. These guys don’t go on the record unless they have a reason.
hollinm

I cannot believe for one minute the Liberals think they can win an election based on faux scandals thought up by them and that are falling by the wayside each day.

However, the Liberals are so arrogant and hypocritical they might just believe their own foolish rhetoric.

Truth is the party stalwarts do not believe in Dion’s “winning” carbon strategy and they are pushing for an election to get the misery over with. Have the Liberals lose the election, get rid of Dion, elect a new leader, move on to building the party and have it stand for something…anything is better than nothing. That should happen as Harper is finishing his first majority government.
Calgary Junkie

Could it be that these Liberal dissenters don’t believe their own rhetoric about “the public not wanting an election”, or “waiting for winning conditions” ?

Dion needs a new excuse that they can all live with.

How about, “Kyoto ate my platform” ?
http://www.todaysautonews.com jwl

I don’t know about a mutiny but Dion’s colleagues are certainly messing him about. Last fall, there were numerous stories about Dion wanting to call an election but cabinet/caucus did not. Now they want an election when Dion wants to spend the summer trying to ‘educate’ us on the merits of carbon tax. They certainly appear to be sabotaging his chances of winning an election. What’s going to happen in the fall when Dion does want to bring down the government?
Joan Tintor

Is that the same Walrus magazine that ran a cover story about how Harper is a puppet of evangelicals? The same Harper who is now reportedly about to put notorious papist Guy Giorno in charge?

But seriously, those awards rarely go to Macleans. They go to magazines such as Toronto Life and Saturday Night that run thumbsuckers like the one noted above. Since Whyte took over, Maclean’s is timely, lively and provocative. the Walrus? This Magazine on glossy paper.
http://scottdiatribe.gluemeat.com Scott Tribe

Actually Joan, since Whyte took over, the magazine has shifted notably to the right in his editorial stance, is what you really mean.
.
Andrew Potter

@Joan: “the Walrus? This Magazine on glossy paper.”

Ok look, I can’t stand the Walrus either, but that’s really hitting below the belt. At least This Magazine is willing to occasionally publish stuff by people like Andrew Coyne and, er, me.
D

@Joan Tintor:

Those prestigious National Magazine Awards now rarely go to Macleans because the quality of content has rapidly degraded with the advent of Whyte’s editorship. Timely? If you like your news one week late. Lively and provocative? If you enjoy endless coverage of poor Conrad Black’s legal woes or Barbara Amiel’s latest rant about the great unwashed lower classes. If it wasn’t for some columnists like Paul Wells, Kady O’Malley or Luiza Ch. Savage, the only thing Macleans would be good for would be wrapping fish.
Paul Wells

Among other problems too numerous to list, D. suffers from a poor choice of indicator. Maclean’s won more National Magazine Award nominations this year than in any of the previous 32 years. It won the Magazine of the Year award after the first full year that Ken Whyte was the editor and its share of the nominations has increased in each year he has been editor. As for actual wins, I’m not sure whether we won more this year than ever before, but this year’s haul would compare favourably with most previous years’. So whatever the NMAs measure, they are no help at all for anyone trying to use them as evidence of Maclean’s declining quality. Incidentally, it’s really swell that D. is a fan of Luiza, Kady and me. So am I. But none of us was nominated for an NMA this year. Mark Steyn, on the other hand, was. Your choice of indicator, D, not mine.
Anon

Pity Maclean’s needs $3M from the Feds to keep going, eh? Must be hard for those free-marketeers like Whyte & Coyne to swallow :-)
http://andrewcoyne.com Andrew Coyne

I am trying to have it revoked. The hate conviction should be helpful in this regard.
D

@Paul Wells:

So, it looks like Maclean’s won 6 gold and 7 silver in the last THREE years of the NMAs, while The Walrus won 6 gold and 4 silver just in the last year alone. I guess you can always say: “It’s just an honour to be nominated”…

But you’re right that the NMAs, no doubt, are somewhat subjectively awarded. However, from my subjective point of view, most of Maclean’s has become unreadable (except for aforementioned oases of reason, and other writers like Brian Johnson).

Ken Whyte was the kiss of death for the National Post, and he’ll be the same for Maclean’s.
stephen little

Poor Stephan
Dragged back by old Trudeau, Creitien & Martin Establishment Liberals. He’d like to change the direction of the party but the money says no.Inatief, Rae, etal have personal agendas.