Categories: Capital Read, Inside the Queensway

A sorry shade of Green

by kadyomalley on Friday, September 12, 2008 3:59pm - 15 Comments

From TVO’s suddenly hypertopical Agenda Blog:

UPDATE: I have spoken with Green Party Press Secretary Camille Labchuk. She says the party intends to issue an apology to the blogger known as Buckdog, who had been threatened with a lawsuit by Green Party communications director John Bennett for posting a link to Stephen Taylor’s YouTube video.

Labchuk said the incident “was a misunderstanding on John Bennett’s part about the way that YouTube works”. The Greens do not intend to pursue any legal actions against any blogger, Labchuk says.

There, was that so hard? Although honestly, I’m not sure what to make of the explanation behind Bennett’s initial overreaction to the clip, which was as bizarre as it was over-the-top . If he doesn’t understand how Youtube works, it might be best not to let him loose in Outer Bloglandia without supervision — and he shouldn’t be sending cryptic threats on behalf of his party without, you know, checking with someone first.

Tags: did they not have the internet at the sierra club?, Elizabeth May, Green Party, john bennett, time for a group hug, youtube

More by kadyomalley

Lord Bob

I hate being fair to the Greens, but I will be. They’ve only recently come out of the shadow of being a fringe party and started to stalk towards the mainstream. Obviously there’s going to be a little chaff in the wheat that is their communications’ department. In short, unlike the Tories, the Greens have an excuse.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a -really- hot shower.
Calgary Junkie

Elizabeth May wanted to play in the big leagues.

So she can now expect many more hardballs like Stephen Taylor’s video of May musing about “stupid” Canadians.

Hopefully, reporters at her press scrums will press her for things like the details of here “agreement” with Dion.
http://www.kontrol.ca kontrol

Doesn’t anyone want to talk about the issues facing Canadians and what each of the leaders and their parties would do to address these issues? I for one am already tired of the political gamesmanship. Or should that be gameswomanship. Or gamesgreenwomanship.
Lord Bob

Doesn’t anyone want to talk about the issues facing Canadians and what each of the leaders and their parties would do to address these issues?

According to the leaders of every party, the answer to every question is “throw money at it, and also corporations are bad.”

Now that we’ve got that over with, let’s find some mud to sling.
Ti-Guy

Elizabeth May wanted to play in the big leagues.

So she can now expect many more hardballs like Stephen Taylor’s video of May musing about “stupid” Canadians.

The juvenile smears the Conservatives are coming up with is bush league. Except for the one that got Ryan Sparrow suspended. That truly was big league.
Lord Kitchener’s Own

Can I just give props to The Agenda?

That’s one really great show imo, and it really does a public service with it’s coverage.
Dot

and he shouldn’t be sending cryptic threats on behalf of his party without, you know, checking with someone first.

That’s an assumption I wouldn’t be comfortable in making.
http://deleted Sandi

Kady – have you read Garth Turner’s blog about Day 5

Very disturbing….and considering Guelph – it looks very sick.
http://www.wernerpatels.com Werner Patels

The threat against the blogger was extremely bad form, indeed. I am glad they apologized to the blogger, even though the apology contained references indicating that this Green Party apparatchik thinks he’s in charge of policing the blogosphere.
Allen R. Wells

(a)Thanks to Sandi for drawing attention to Garth Turner’s plight.
(b)Are debates to rehash what has been done, with 0 or 127 members, or what will be done with 0 to 200 members? I thought I was preparing to vote in the NEXT election for the NEXT parliament – the one with Green members in it.
Sam
Cool Blue

So let me get this straight

The Greens have a DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS who doesn’t understand how the internet works?
Dot

This was painful to watch. Microphones cutting in/out/others speaking/ I said “fundamentally disagree”, not “fundamentally agree”…

buckdog has the Agenda May interview link.

This should give the blogoshere something to keep them busy
Steve Wart

So this is the same top-flight communications director everyone was oohing over just a few days ago?

I love the way buckdog removed the “link” but kept the URL on his page. Slander indeed.

The Internet is bad for the environment.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

I thought May was dire last night on Paiken’s show and showed why she’s going to be the wildcard in the debates.

She was arguing that she said ‘disagree’ when she clearly said ‘agree’. She just should have said she misspoke, that she doesn’t think Canadians are stupid (tho she probably does) and move on with the interview. It’s nonsensical to argue that you didn’t say something while showing us the clip that proves you did.
Jack Mitchell

I wrote to the Greens to complain about their use of libel chill, and all I got back was an email giving their side of the story on the clip, i.e. that it was “unintentionally edited” or whatever. In spite of my email, which they had obviously not read, they did not address – and AFAIK have not apologised for – the fact that they were threatening a blogger with legal action.

Of course they were within their rights to do so, as Kinsella has demonstrated on umpteen occasions, but there is something profoundly distasteful about a relatively wealthy organisation like the Greens threatening a private person, even if that person did (as was, comically, not the case here) break the law.

Anyway, my conclusion is that the Green Party of Canada is still being run like a campaign for high school president, only with lawyers. They have one issue – paint the cafeteria – and some reputation for being cool, but I would remind potential Green voters that they’re not voting simply for an issue but for human beings, and they should decide after taking a good look at both.