Categories: Andrew Coyne, Capital Read

Duceppe: French for without shame

by Andrew Coyne on Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:07pm - 0 Comments

Duceppe called Harper’s comments a “low blow” during a radio interview in Montreal…

“I think it’s just unacceptable to criticize Mr. Dion’s English,” Duceppe said….

“Anything that touches on the quality of Mr. Dion’s English are low blows.

Hmmm… Now where did I see… I seem to recall… Yes, here it is, thanks to alert reader ST:

[T]he Bloc leader also acknowledged Layton put on a strong performance in the English debate, but appeared to feel pity when discussing Dion.

“He really had trouble with his English,” Duceppe said, shaking his head

I know, it looks like shameless hypocrisy. But maybe he just misunderstood the question.

Tags: Election Watch, language wars, shameless hypocrisy

More by Andrew Coyne

Francien Verhoeven

seaandthemountains,

“Hi Francien… feel like I am being baited here…”

Not to worry if your intelligence radar is up.
Francien Verhoeven

“Not to worry if your intelligence radar is up……and running.”

:)
http://deleted Marthe

Two days before we vote and there’s nothing new here. Just the usual mean-spirited partisan attacks.

Duceppe is pretty good at it, he’s bringing back votes for the block.
Murray Littlejohn

I spoke to Steve Murphy last year when he was interviewing Peter C. Newman before a live audience in Saint John New Brunswick. Both men took swipes at Stéphane Dion on the stage during their ‘fire-side chat’. Their view was the standard conservative “Dion is not a leader” – He does not have ‘it’”. His linguistic skills were brought up for particular criticism. Speaking to Steve Murphy after the event, he reiterated his view of Dion to me with even more conviction. His dislike of Dion was palpable. I walked away from the conversation wondering how Dion could ever get a fair hearing from such a journalist – when the fierce criticism of Dion is a matter of ’style over substance and character’.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Mr. Murphy could have linguistically confused question as trap for Dion he would have. Surely the incident would have brought sheer delight to Murphy. That CTV ensured the release and immediate distribution of the ‘outtake’ speaks for itself. “Gotcha!” – Journalistic standards are so high these days!

Andrew is one of several exceptions. His article on Harper is right on target, piercing beyond the shadow and the disguise. Agree or disagree with Andrew Coyne, there is always substance to the conversation. One can gain traction in the conversation and the discussion can go somewhere
Al Heck Brakes

“there is a larger segment of the population that identifies highly with SH and the CPC on a range of values and norms (e.g., less government spending, less social regulation, greater free market, etc)”

I don’t see SH that way at all. This is a myth based on old SH speeches from his wilderness years when he actually sounded like a free marketeer, and on the ludicrous attacks aimed at SH by the other parties which for reasons of branding need to have as their biggest enemy a cold-hearted capitalist S.O.B.

Is SH any of the the things you claim?

He’s been spending money like a drunken you-know-what. His “tough on crime” policy is an exercise in social regulation (the majority of the people given extra-long sentences will be low-level drug-dealing schmucks caught up in police setups – this is far easier than tracking down and arresting the truly violent). Very little points to a solid commitment to free markets – it seems like every week SH or some other Tory is boasting about how they’re going to come down hard on some business or other, to protect the public from the big, bad capitalists. The copyright law sounds like a nightmare. The arctic development initiative is pure Soviet-style central planning. The Afghan war is an absurd exercise in forcing a leftie-socialist, secular democracy on a country which for the most part wants nothing to do with it.

Last but not least is the commitment to kill the Canadian standard of living by 20-40 percent by cutting carbon emissions by an absolute 20 percent while the population grows by perhaps the same amount. As destructive and loony-left a policy as any CBC-listening flake could ever wish for.

While limited government, etc. as you outlined could have a large audience within Canada, that audience is not susceptible to being herded into electorally-concentrated voting blocks and therefore they will never get their say at the polls. No democratic politician will ever get elected as leader of a large country like Canada unless they promote victimhood among electorally-concentrated blocks of voters and then propose massive government intervention as the remedy.

Happy turkey day everyone. I will not be seeing you at the polling booth next week.

P.S. Andrew – you’ve got this new blog going like a house on fire, just like the old blog. Well done.