Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'Suggesting otherwise is offensive'

by Aaron Wherry on Saturday, May 16, 2009 2:37am - 29 Comments

Three political strategists discuss what comes next. Leslie Campbell takes the opportunity to wax philosophic.

The Conservative Ignatieff.me campaign is unfortunate because it brings politics into further disrepute, as if things weren’t bad enough already. Don’t get me wrong — Michael Ignatieff”s background, qualifications, opinions and previous policy statements are all fair game. But saying that “he’s in it for himself” is unfair and calls into question the motivation of all politicians. Everyone has their failings, and some politicians are manifestly unqualified, but most Canadians enter public life because they believe they have something to contribute to the country. Suggesting otherwise is offensive.

The Conservatives are soiling their own nest. If Mr. Ignatieff’s motivations are selfish, what does that say about other party leaders and other members of Parliament? Why does ridicule and childishness have to be the modus operandi of political debate? Why not weave the salient portions of Mr. Ignatieff’s biography into a more substantial form of discussion? The same points could be made, but without resort to personal attacks.

Tags: attack ads, Leslie Campbell, Michael Ignatieff

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Meany

“because it brings politics into further disrepute”

Ha.

Only a politician could come up with that.

Guys, you are already lower than used car salesmen on those annually published lists. You can’t go any further into disrepute.

Douglass

Yes they can, but I’d like them not to.
Jarrid

“Why does ridicule and childishness have to be the modus operandi of political debate?”

Back in the 2000 campaign, Warren Kinsella mocked Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs with his Barney the Dinosaur prop and his quip that “The Flintstones wasn’t a documentary.” Now these were’t Day’s political views, but honestly held evangelical biblical interpretation.

What did Paul Wells, then writing for the National Post have to say about it? This: “the transformation of Mr. Day from Stock to Laughingstock was complete.”

What did Prime Minister Jean Chretien have to say about it? Jean Chretien’s reaction to the mockery of Mr. Day’s religious views by Kinsella is outlined in Kinsella’s book “The War Room”. Chretien called Kinsella and asked him what had happened. Kinsella told him and Chretien apparently “laughed and laughed” and told Kinsella to tell him the story another time.

Who did Michael Ignatieff hand-pick to run his warroom in the next election? Warren Kinsella.

Anon

Ignatieff is not Stockwell.

Kinsella is funny. The Barney shtick was hilarious.

The Tory ads are not funny. They are actually quite grating and annoying.

Jarrid

Way to side-step the point Anon.

kody

Questioning a politician’s “motives” is the lowest of the low (when done by a conservative),

Openly mocking one’s religious views, and attempting to personally destroy, based on those views: fair game. (when done by a Liberal).

Engaging in the worst type of fear tactics (girl rocking in the fetal position, unable to get help; soldiers in our streets; “taking away our rights” ect.); that’s not the lowest. No siree, questioning “motives” is.

Remarkable.

kody

The reality is this:

Conservatives have a massive warchest (due to a massive level of grassroots support) and are able to employ the ads. The Liberals don’t (due to the paltry grassroot support).

And so the goalposts are being shifted to decry the use of such ads.

Zeph

Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs is an opinion, and it’s a fair game to attack. If I believe that three headed molemen are responsible for continental drift then do you seriously think it’s not relevant if I want to be PM? Gosh, it’s a basic filter to prevent someone totally retarded to become the head of Canada.

BTW: It’s quite clear to me that you have suffered irreversible emotional damages because of what Kinsella has said. You should sue him and seek the help of a competent therapist.
Mike T.

They were neither religious nor political beliefs, they were fundamentally inaccurate and insane scientific beliefs.

And the killer for Day was that he wasn’t willing to publicly say he wouldn’t allow his freaky fundyism to dictate his political behaviour. I remember about the not Sunday campaigning stuff, all he would give was a fairly ominous quote about how he wouldn’t give up his religion for public office.

Jesse

Like it or not, attack ads are used extensively because they work. Nobody knew that Dion was ‘not a leader’ until the Conservatives told us again and again. Ignatieff is less susceptible to this line of attack because he’s already got a reputation as an intelligent man, but if he’s not careful then ‘just visiting’ will stick to him just as badly, with the same results.

Harper will be much harder to pin down with negative ads because he’s a known quantity. Sure, he’s Machiavelli reborn, sure he’s cold and harsh and mean, but none of that is particularly new. Unless the Liberals can get footage of him eating one of those foster kittens alive, they’re going to have a rough time finding an effective angle of attack. Ad hominem only works when you can define your opponent before he can define himself.

Critical Reasoning

Nobody knew that Dion was ‘not a leader’ until the Conservatives told us again and again.

Not quite. Personally, the first time I knew with 100% certainty that Dion was not a leader was when I read about that infamous post-election Liberal caucus meeting, in which most the frustrated Liberal caucus made it crystal clear that Dion was, in fact, not a leader.

catherine

Attack ads work unless they boomerang. The Liberals should fan the flames of this being a desperate act from a Prime Minister who is more concerned with staying in power than focussing on the problems of Canadians. There is already a fair amount of media commentary along these lines.

Norm Ouston in Armstrong.BC

Don’t be led down the garden path into believing Mr. Harper wrote those very wise adds. He may have seen them and even sanctioned them but they were written by people paid by the Conservative Party who in turn are supported by the many intelligent and loyal members, and not the Government of Canada.

What makes you think it takes any focuss away from the problems we all share?

I think the adds are fantastic. Ol’ Iggy is squirming. Perfect.

Go Conservatives. Go.

Loraine Lamontagne

Norm, Are you trying to convince us that HARPER-IS-NOT-A-LEADER? Last I heard, he was the Leader of the Conservative of Canada and the organization under his leadership is running these ads. Harper is responsible for the running of these ads, just he is responsible for the huge deficit his government has incurred.

Jarrid

Yeah Lorraine, see my comment above about Warren Kinsella’s mockery of Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs and Jean Chretien’s reaction to it in his private conversation with Kinsella: laughter and more laughter.

Laughing at other people’s religious views.

I can imagine the merriment that Michael Ignatieff will have in private telephone conversations he’ll be having with Warren Kinsella as Kinsella reports to his boss about his negative campaiging as Mr. Ignatieff’s hand-picked head of the Liberal Party of Canada election warroom.

Loraine Lamontagne

I don’t recall the Liberal Party of Canada running a series of negative ads attacking Stockwell Day’s religious beliefs. I DOrecall the Conservative Party running an ad mocking Jean Chrétien’s face.
Jarrid

Nice side-step Lorraine, the Kinsella attack was on Canada AM which according to Kinsella, had a viewership of over 2,000,000 people.

The media ran with it and ridicule of certain people’s religious views was seen as legitimate. Certainly Jean Chretien thought so and Kinsella was his witness and talked about it in his book. I haven’t heard Chretien ever repudiate it.

catherine

Harper’s PMO staff, Kory and Dimitri, released the ads to the media.

You may think the ads are wonderful, but look at today’s headlines:

Tories should can attack ads [Edmonton Journal]
Tories looking like narrow-minded bigots [Vancouver Sun]
Latest round of attack ads not welcome [Toronto Star]
Tories attack: bad manners, bad politics [Globe and Mail]
Nitwits of negativity reach new low [London Free Press]
Boggled by the hatred [Canoe]
Missing the mark [Globe and Mail]

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

As my grandfather use to say, ‘if you are taking flak, than you are over the target’.

Providing a list of lib newspaper that don’t like Con ads is not very convincing about how they will play to the common person who watches them on tv and doesn’t care what latte liberal writers think.

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com Scott Tribe

I didnt realize Rex Murphy and a columnist at the Toronto Sun qualified as liberal-latte writers (another stupid denigrating attack line, by the way). I think your definition of a liberal is rather skewed jwl.

Mike T.

When the Sun turns on the CPoC, they know their in trouble.

Smith

I liked the ads. They made me laugh. I even called in and donated.
avr

When the prime complaint mounted by critics is that a Conservative strategy could possibly work, but is just so mean, that’s often been a pretty good leading indicator of success.
KOL

Go Conservatives. Go.

There is the essence of Harperian political philosophy.
knick

The Harper party has been reduced to targetting attack ads to their core supporters.

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com Scott Tribe

And in the meantime, spoofs of this ad are already out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttadqbx4yEU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

kody

As long as Harper continues this country in the direction of being the envy of banking and economic stability in a world of economic chaos,

he’ll be leader.

While the left decries things that are important to them: being “mean” to their vaunted leaders,

the rest of Canadians and the world take note of the important stuff, like say, not being in a complete economic meltdown, like those all around us.

Don’t think the Conservative warchest won’t be employed to remind Canadians just how better off they are under Harper’s leadership, than the rest of the world.

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com Scott Tribe

Right Kody.. I see you’ve been supplied with the latest Conservative War Room talking points.

sf

This “calls into question the motivation of all politicians” is one of the dumbest and ridiculous arguments I’ve ever heard.

“Don’t criticize our party, it will be disruptive to all politics.”

You know, this is the kind of argument that is frequently used in dictatorships and communist countries when they repress the rights of their citizens. “We cannot be criticized, because it delegitimizes the state and is a national security concern”.

Wherry: by posting this comment you’ve sunk to a new low.