John Baird defends his protege. With irony.
Transport Minister John Baird, who is also from Nepean, called the Citizen to defend Poilievre vigorously, calling the whole issue “gotcha-politics taken to the extreme.”
“This is partisanship run amok,” he said.
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Comment
John Baird is a blustery blowhard.
“gotcha-politics taken to the extreme.”
Kind of like a PM who threatens an opposition leader with ‘tapes’.
agreed
From http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1221764,00.html
“Is tar baby a racist term? Like most elements of language, that depends on context. Calling the Big Dig a tar baby is a lot different than calling a person one. But sensitivity is not unwarranted. Among etymologists, a slur’s validity hangs heavily on history. The concept of tar baby goes way back, according to Words@Random from Random House: “The tar baby is a form of a character widespread in African folklore. In various folktales, gum, wax or other sticky material is used to trap a person.” The term itself was popularized by the 19th-century Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris, in which the character Br’er Fox makes a doll out of tar to ensnare his nemesis Br’er Rabbit. The Oxford American Dictionary defines tar baby much like Romney used it, “a difficult problem, that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it.” But the term also has had racial implications. In his book Coup, John Updike says of a white woman who prefers the company of black men, “some questing chromosome within holds her sexually fast to the tar baby.” The Oxford English Dictionary (but not the print version of its American counterpart) says that tar baby is a derogatory term used for “a black or a Maori.”
For context, what precisely was the metaphor? Was it a difficult, sticky problem that is like a doll covered in tar that ensnare passers-by? Or was it a baby who happens not to be white, but is referred to as “tar” by someone who is white? By adding the paternity references–and particularly those that raise the hint of an unwanted baby (hence the paternity test)–that’s what tips the balance, some might think.
Yes, Poilievre’s talk of fathering, putting up for adoption and paternity suit distinguishes his use from all the other examples that the PMO referred to in his defense.
In the examples the PMO gave, one could simply replace “tar baby” with “sticky situation” and the sentences all sound fine, with no out of place, unwanted baby talk.
I’m glad you picked that up too…seems like the elaboration speaks more about the intent of meaning rather than all this talk about the original use of the phrase.
No, “tar baby” and “sticky situation” are not the same at all. One is a person, the other a scenario. It’s like equating the words “human” and “location”.
The evidence provided in the last two threads suggests that we’re all agreed: Poilievre is an obstreperous idiot but not necessarily an obstreperous racist idiot–which is, frankly, merely a less elegant way of saying he’s a Canadian Member of Parliament in the Year of Our Lord 2009.
Next…
Indeed. But this is obstreperousness run amok.
Civillization grinds ever onward. Apparently you can take the racist out of the idiot, but erasing the idiot may take another millenium or two.
Which is why Poilievre will be the MP for Nepean forever.
Poilievre received 39,921 votes in the last election, the second highest vote total of any candidate. He must be doing something right.
Are the good people of Nepean overly fond of idiots?
CR Obviously he works hard. So i’ll rephrase. A hard working hyper-partisan idiot.
Someone from Nepean commented at one point that his constituency office is unrivaled. I wonder if Ottawa MP’s have a built-in advantage that way, being chez eux all the time; my old MP, Mauril Bélanger of Ottawa-Vanier, is likewise very hands-on. Still, you’d hope the good people of Nepean would pay some attention to the big picture.
I’m sure that his constituency office is unrivaled, I’m sure that he has a built-in advantage as an Ottawa MP, and I’m sure he’ll be a player in Canadian politics for the next three decades or so, so everyone may as well get used to him. :)
I’ll maybe start paying him some attention when he’s ready for long pants.
Kc, you never know. He could be one of those youthful partisan types who eventually acquires wisdom, earns his long pants and gradually morphs into a senior statesman (or at least a senior cabinet minister.)
Like a certain former Prime Minister from Shawinigan?
Heh. Like Chretien, exactly. I’m not saying that Poilievre will ever chance at the top job (quite the contrary – it’s obvious that he isn’t up to snuff). I’m just saying that in Darwinian world of Canadian Politics, he will prove one of those hardy survivors. Even if the Conservatives get clobbered in Ontario, he will be like one of those indestructible lichens clinging to a rock in Nepean.
Gotcha-politics? What a joke? Poilievre was reading from a prepared statement in Parliament.
I don’t know why CPC MPs want to fight for the right to use this term. I learned about the term as a racial slur before I knew it had a different original meaning so it sounds racist to my ears. However, one can tell when a person makes a genuine mistake and is sorry. Poilievre is not coming across as sorry.
Reflects badly on Poilevre’s voters. All he had to say was in what context he meant the phrase and apologize to those who thought he was saying otherwise – simple and overwith. By not doing so, he appears like he meant it to sting.
How hard can that be for a hard working MP? He had to apologize for our aboriginal citizens for his unclassy remarks.
The words you choose do matter. The briar rabbit, tarbaby is a good metaphor for many things in our society but ultimately cannot be used because of its double meaning. This is not about politcal correctness or gotcha politics it is about empathy. That he said it in the first place is bad enough, that he and his party won’t admit fault and apologize speaks to their overall lack of understanding.
“Are the good people of Nepean overly fond of idiots?”
The guy they really wanted already has a gig in Calgary West.
We all know about the boook “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – Uncle Tom is used in a negative fashion.
C’mon – you don’t think Harper/Poilievre know? They’re using it on purpose to gear attention away from the government’s mess. So, Harper’s strategy is – doesn’t matter who you offend and little PP worships me so much he’s take the punches for me. I’m sorry, but this is sick.
That may have been the immediate result, but really, I think it’s giving even The Strategist(tm Anon) too much credit to think that this was all a cunning plan. it’s a one (or in this case, maybe two, since it was a Friday) day story, as far as the news cycle goes. The deficit will be with us always — or at least for the foreseeable future.
It hit me last night after a night of intermittent chitterchattering about the “tar baby” tar baby that, in this instance, using it as a metaphor for the carbon tax wasn’t even faithful to the Uncle Remus version of the tale, which involves Brer Rabbit *attacking* the tar baby, not attempting to abandon it, and denying paternity, thus putting him at serious risk of losing his literary device licence.
He really should have changed it to quicksand — it still works, as far as the imagery goes: He could have described the top of Dion’s head disappearing under the muck as he’s sucked into the depths, and Ignatieff in full flail mode, grappling desperately for a rope so as to escape a similar fate.
(Yes, it’s distinctly possible I’ve put way more thought into this than whoever was on duty Friday during QP prep.)
If Poilievre truly intended no racial slur, he would have done what you did – checked all of it’s meanings, and chosen some other metaphor. And if he truly intended no racial slur, then he would have apologized in a timely fashion to those who may have been offended by his twice uttered remark. He did neither. That suggests that he couldn’t care less if anyone is offended by the racial undertone of his remark, and makes it appear all the more deliberate and calculated.
But, if he were simply constructing a somewhat awkward metephor tying together Dion, Iggy, the carbon tax, and the tar sands, would an apology not be insincere?
That`s the problem when we allow ourselves to be controlled by the wishes of the language police. Everybody would be so afraid of offending one another that the language soon becomes like pablum ( I`m sorry if I offended the babies of the world ! ).
Perhaps the metaphor he was trying to construct was not worth constructing. It’s not an issue of language police, it’s an issue of harm done intentionally or not to a racial group by the use of a term that has racial undertones. It’s a slippery slope when public figures can be excused for mangling a metaphor that requires a racially sensitive expression.
Do you carry around a dictionary?
Kady simply checked with some of her colleagues about the term, then Googled it. Surely that’s not too much to ask of an MP.
You think MPs are googling things in question period on their blackberries?
sf – are you seriously suggesting that MPs make it up as they go along in QP?
Well, they have an idea what they intend to say, but they don’t have speechwriters, fact checkers, or their office staff assisting them when they respond to questions or raise issues. Neither do I, nor do most people.
I think most people would consider that unreasonable cumbersome and unnecessary.
But if you think it’s wise to google things on your blackberry or laptop to do fact-checking and verification of definitions while you have a discussion with someone, then all the power to you. I’m sure your friends will love it.
Wrong. If you want to describe someone who cannot rid himself of something else, you call that person a “tar baby”. That something else will stick to the tar and cannot be removed. “Quicksand” is not the slightest bit the same. In fact, someone in quicksand does not stick to anything.
If you want to describe someone who cannot rid himself of something else, you call that person a “tar baby”.
I thought you said in an earlier thread that you had never heard of the term.
What about “albatross”? Or even an original metaphor — “tapeworm” vel sim.?
Yes, I had never heard of it. So I looked it up. It’s pretty clear from the story in Brer Rabbit and the use of the term since, what the concept is all about. Most of the references you find about the term provide absolutely no indication that there is anything racist nor anything negative about the term.
You may not have heard of it, apparently a fair number of people have not, but another fair number of people do know the racist connotation, or at least make an effort to veryify if there is one, as Kady did. For an MP to be so careless, at the very least, as to use the term in the House in the context that Poilievre used it is inexcuseable.
Can we please have an election so those two yahoos are no longer in government?
I remember a few years ago, the Liberals were in power at the height of the floor crossing rumours and innuendo. Anyways in between the Stronachs and the Grewal tape-gate, Inky Mark, an MP from Manitoba, claimed the Liberals offered an ambassadorship or something along those lines to resign, thus leaving the Conservatives another vote short in any confidence measure. The media of course was intrigued and went to the Liberals for comment, and one, Reg Alcock then Minister for the Treasury Board, called Mark’s claims baseless among other things, and in the process of essentially calling him dumb (in of itself not exactly a high point for political discourse in Canada) said Mark “was swimming the shallow end of the gene pool” or something like that, anyways, if memory serves the Conservatives had no trouble throwing out the “racist” card at that point, which of course this time the Liberals were the ones decrying the partisan hyperbole of the Opposition.
This isn’t to say one side is right, and the other wrong, but just that political opportunity is political opportunity in the eyes of political parties, regardless of how asinine the whole thing looks from the outside. It pains me to say this, but Poilievre didn’t mean it in a racial way, I’m convinced of that. That being said, by not say sorry if anyone was offended, this winds up playing in the news for longer than it should, and probably gets an extended shelf life thanks to his past.
Baird – gotcha partisan politics run amok LOL – from the party that has nasty gremlins working in a basement of the Con war room looking for gotcha partisan politics for ads.
Too much.
Back to the basement there Baird.
I cannot believe the amateur language police operating on this site. I don`t think it is helpful to forensically dissect and examine words and phrases from partisan politicans in the H of C. The context and meaning of the words are often lost in your analysis as you assume what the speaker may have meant.
By constantly repeating these words Aaron invites Jack and others to instinctively vent their anger at a person they do not like. Such phrases as ” sheer viciousness of his invective ” and ” should be horsewhipped ” seem to show a deep anger in the writer more than any insight into an elected MP.
It is hoped that the anger of the language police does not also implicate the good people of Nepean.
If you dropped the phrase language police from Gdanszczanka’s comment, and replaced it with something appropriate it could be persuasive.
“Deep anger”? Give me a break. If Pollièvre would just turn down the volume a bit and quit with the Young Turk schtick, I would happily reclassify him (and happily revoke my call for him to be publicly horsewhipped, FWIW). Meanwhile, if you spend you whole political career (thusfar) earning a reputation as an A-1 blowhard, neither you nor your secret admirers have much license to complain when people treat you with contempt.