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

About those tapes

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:30am - 13 Comments

Michael Ignatieff’s scrummed response to the Prime Minister’s statement during QP, directed at the opposition leader, about “all the tapes I have on him.”

Question: Mr. Harper said he has tapes on you.

Michael Ignatieff: Yes, that’s the other thing. He said, he said in the House that he had tapes on me. That is the most Nixonian of Mr. Harper’s many remarks. Every day that goes by, he’s more like Richard Nixon. We are in the middle of the most serious crisis, economic crisis since the second world war and the Prime Minister of Canada is wasting his time listening to tapes of me. And then, not content with that, he says it in the House of Commons so he’ll intimidate me. I will not be intimidated by the Prime Minister. I’ve got a job to do which is to hold him to account. The public finances of our country are in free fall and he’s wasting time with tapes of me? It’s a joke.

Tags: house of commons, Michael Ignatieff, Question Period, Richard Nixon, Stephen Harper

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DisplacedCanadian

This “tapes” thing is so ridiculous. Harper really did come off like he’s isolated himself within the PMO with Ignatieff archival footage. P in PMO stands for paranoia! (Charles Nelson Reilly collar tug)
dan in van

Guess the ‘I’m gonna sue!’ option was off the table. What’s most preposterous is that whether he’s got staff using their time to grind up these tapes or its CON staff doing the dirty work, taxpayers are paying for it, either directly or through the heavily subsidized taxable donations.
Harper is Queeg, rolling his dice on plots and guarding his strawberries while the ship is listing. He’s truly cracking up. But where’s the CON talking points? Don’t tell me the baby soiled himself again?
Jarrid

Notice how Ignatieff”s reference point is American, again. I wonder why that is?

Oh well, I guess you go with what you know.

catherine

Yes, because Canada hasn’t had a leader so known for having tapes of his political opponent. Until now that is.
Jarrid

Michael Ignatieff didn’t hire attack dog Warren Kinsella to twiddle his thumbs, Catherine. Kinsella swears by negative advertising.

Didn’t Ignatieff say “If you mess with me, I will mess with you until I’m done.” Based on his predecessors conduct and with his predecessors’ hired help, we can expect the Liberals will be up to their old tricks.

Jean Chretien went after Preston Manning and Stockwell Day. Martin did the same to Stephen Harper.

Chretien and Martin’s attacks on their opponents were malicious and over the top. The Conservatives are simply quoting MIchael Ignatieff – in his own words, no less.

What’s all the fuss about? Seriously.

Patrick

I don’t know Jarrid. But you sure seem to be making a lot of fuss about attack ads that haven’t even been created nor aired by Liberals!

Michael

Yep, there was no Canadian equivalent. Henceforth, Nixonian shall be renamed in Canada: Harperian!

Jarrid

The old Liberal line was “Harper’s just like Bush”. Now it’s “He’s just like Nixon”

Meanwhile their fearless leader says “We Americans”

(Sigh)

Didn’t they invite former presidential nominee Howard Dean to be their keynote speaker in the Montreal leadership convention.

(Sigh)

Michael

Meanwhile, Harper’s “light and inspiration” American Conservatives also let their deficit get out of control, and when they found that they were up against it come election time, they too attacked their main political rival on such trivialities as time spent abroad, patriotism, etc.

And look where that got them.

Wayne

Poor Iggy .. here comes all those old tapes of him saying ridiculous things. Deal with it! How often have all of us seen and heard all those old clips of Stevie boy saying the ridiculous things he did when he was young and stupid … well well well .. turnaround is far play and I have no doubt and am looking forward to some of the even more stupid and ridiculous things Iggy has said and done .. this is why I love politics. Although I mentioned it on another thread my favorite tape is the Igster saying about the only thing he misses about Canada is Algonquin Park! ROFL – LMAO that one is going to hurt. – and Iggy trying to spin old video tapes of himself on record saying stupid things as Nixonian is a feeble attempt at best to change the subject and only the tin foil hat crowd will buy into that one.
Jason

The Conservatives seem to have had quite the history with tapes:

- they secretly and possibly illegally tape private meetings of the NDP in November and release the private tapes to the public.

- they secretly and unethically tape private conversations while in opposition, altering the tapes and then releasing them to the public.

- they get caught on tape admitting they were offering Cadman “financial considerations” for his vote and then try to block that tape from going to the public and then lie about it being doctored.

Wayne

must you really copy paste the same post over and over and over and over again… in the same web forum …. I mean really all it does is tell people you need to get a life and don’t have enough creativity to use multiple web sites or maybe you are doing the same at others -

Jason

This from the “guy” who just yesterday took pride in admitting to Aaron that he was going to post and re-post the same response to Aaron’s various postings.

Besides I most certainly did not “copy paste the same post over and over and over and over again”. That is an utter lie. I merely copy pasted the same post over and over and again.