Inkless Wells

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Crit_Reasoning, loyal to the end… or not…

by Paul Wells on Friday, December 11, 2009 10:42pm - 57 Comments

We too were amused by this item in Jane Taber’s blog, to the effect that Peter MacKay is heading home to Nova Scotia and “a dose of reality,” thanks to staffers who’ve rounded up another inflatable pet dog and a new stack of talking points for him. Jane discovers that MacKay’s crack helpers have found a comment on Colleague Wherry’s blog which will, they hope, buck the boss up.

It would probably not help the minister’s mood to learn that the same commenter adds, a short way down in the same thread:

I really don’t care whether Mackay stays or goes. He seems to have botched the government’s defense with his recklessly unequivocal blanket declarations, so maybe it’s time for him to go.

Tags: crit_reasoning, Peter MacKay

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Dot

Well, he has mentioned a couple of times that he does enjoy the Wells smackdowns…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Inkless Inkless

This is more shout-out than smackdown, I hope.

Dot

"another inflatable pet dog" – could be taken two ways – but now that you've clarified, the ambiguity is removed.

Anon

Hey, listen, when Greta Harpo sends up Wetsuit Stock to talk Afghan policy, you know your time's up.

Leader of the Nova Scotia PCs?

Or, maybe like Tiger, an indefinite break from politics?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Inkless Inkless

Point of information: Minister Day has run the news conference for the release of every one of these quarterly Afghanistan reports. Five so far, I believe. It's because he chairs the cabinet committee on Afghanistan. That may well beg a question (Why does he chair the cabinet committee on Afghanistan?) but there you go.

Anon

Ah, I see. He chairs the cmte probably because Emerson used to chair it before and Day replaced him at Intl Affairs?

Mike T.

You mean critical reasoning ISN'T Peter MacKay??!!

hee hee. just kidding (accusing them of being high ranking CPCers never gets old). A doff of the cap to our politically oriented frog.

Mike T.

Still, now that I've read the linked quote, I hope the green one can see the difference between afghanistans harming each other, and harming each other after we've handed them over and know the practice is going on.

As I've said before, i anxiously await the who when and where.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I read it as a shout-out.

Dot

Yeah, but I've noticed you tend to read a lot of things wrong.

Btw, have you already bought front row tickets for the next installment of the Macleans-CPAC travelling road show? I'll be looking for the guy in the audience who claps and cheers louder than most on subtle inside politics jokes.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

When Coyne v. Wells comes to Calgary, I'll be one of the first to get tickets. I won't be loudly clapping and cheering in the front row, though… I'm much less obnoxious in person.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Of course you won't be in the front row. You'll be perched on a half-wall in such a way to keep the muppeteer hidden from view…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Well, now that you are one baby step away from advising on policy, Crit, I do hope you'll remember the little people back where you came from. Congratulations on not only getting an entire blog post devoted to you, but going viral! to bad you had to land where you did, but its a start.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

It's all part of my quest to become Canada's most influential anonymous blog commenter. Think of the prestige!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Heh. I was wondering when someone was going to pick up on that. I meant every word, too. I haven't exactly been overwhelmed by the Minister's recent handling of this topic. First, the ham-handed initial response to Colvin, then the blanket denials which were practically begging to be proven wrong.

Anon Liberal

I'm sure Taber will include this info in her next groundbreaking piece of journalism.

Dot

Would this be a Hot or a Not Hot, or a Hot then Not?

kcm

You realise you are now probably the equivalent of a newspaper cutting in Mackay's scrapbook? Maybe you oughta send him your concluding judgement? It did take a full court press of posters to give you a nudge….nah…on second thought don't bother, we all need our illusions.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Well, I really do like Peter Mackay, generally speaking. I think he's a talented fellow. I cheered his long-shot bid to become Secretary-General of NATO (which received a surprising amount of support from countries like the United States and Poland before it was kaiboshed by France and Germany).

Mackay had a few very bad weeks, which happens to most high-profile ministers at some point in their careers. I'm sure he'll recover from all this, because he's resilient, charismatic and hard-working.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

[MacKay's] long-shot bid to become Secretary-General of NATO…received a surprising amount of support from countries like the United States and Poland…

That support was surprising indeed. Who could have guessed that an amenable, kow-towing continentalist GWOT groupie from an acquiescent northern hinterland who became the first Minister of Foreign Affairs to declare a crush on a U.S. Secretary of State would get the NATO nod from the Americans and one of their most loyal ex-Warsaw Pact protégés? Shocking. Shocking, I tell you!

It was like the time I saw G.W. Bush put his arm around Tony Blair at a White House press conference a few years ago, as if they were buddies or something. I nearly did a spit-take on that one…

kcm

MacKay's] long-shot bid to become Secretary-General of NATO…received a surprising amount of support from countries like the United States and Poland…

They probably phoned Condi for a reference.

Anon Liberal

ATTENTION CON STAFFERS: USE THE QUOTATION ABOVE.
Sigh

Now you're just pandering.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

The evidence that I'm not pandering is the very subject of this blog post. I wasn't impressed with the Government's clumsy response to the Opposition's predictably shrill and opportunistic attacks on the detainee file, and I've said so many times.

A cabinet shuffle may be salutary at this point. That doesn't mean that I think MacKay should be hung out to dry, or that I view him as a spent force politically. He'll probably recover from this quite nicely, once all the faux outrage over a handful of detainee transfers in 2006 has subsided.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Hey Crit, I think your celebrity really has gone to your head. Two jokes, thus far on this thread, and you answered them seriously.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Heh. It's gone to my head, all right. Now that I know that politicos and DND staffers are parsing my comments, I'll have to be much more careful about what say around here. Or not. ;-)

Dee

Priceless.

Another example of Jane Taber's "detailed" research.
Andre

Poor McKay, he had quite the streak of bad luck in politics…. and now the scorn of Crit? That will leave a mark.

kcm

I doubt it, he probably has kermy under his pillow tonight…sleep tight Peter.

Anon Liberal

He'll always have the love of wilson and psiclone.
André

I don't know. McKay seemed to me like the kind of guy who would read Crit's first comment and say "I'm a bastard!", horrified that he would have played a role in the neglect of Afghan prisoners. He's a smooth talker alright but he never seemed to me like a hard-boiled politician, let alone a defense minister.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Mike514 Mike514

And making things worse for MacKay: CR's original comment as quoted by Taber got 4 thumbs down, but CR's less flattering comment got 5 thumbs up.

Oh, those cursed thumbs-down!

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Oh, the naked partisanship of the thumb-pointers…

http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

MPs get to fingerpoint, we get to thumb point….

Mike T.

OK, I totally mean it this time. This guy IS Peter MacKay.
kcm

'And making things worse for MacKay: CR's original comment as quoted by Taber got 4 thumbs down"

That bit was redacted.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack Mitchell

Apart from CR's well-earned fame (though Taber might have mentioned him by name), I was struck by the fact that the Minister's staff reads the Maclean's comment pages carefully enough to notice it, half-way down the page as it appeared. Can Mr. Wells confirm that the Maclean's blogs get a lot of .gc.ca hits?

kcm

I'm sure you're up on their wall of infamy Jack, right up there with Feschuck. It's one thing to tolerate criticism, but mockery is unforgivable.

kcm

Oops…mockery/taking the piss is Scotts speciality of course.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Good question. Sad, really, they had to go halfway down that fairly long thread before they found something they could use.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

It wasn't that hard for someone to find. It was seventh from the top, and it had 54 replies. Hard to miss, really.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack Mitchell

Yeah, the 54 replies was something of a record too.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Taber might have mentioned him by name…

…because the comment gets so much more credibility when Taber writes "somebody calling him-her-it-self "Crit-underscore-Reasoning" … ?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack Mitchell

How can she mention it on her blog without using her own name?

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

The only way I can make sense of your question is by assuming you mean that Taber IS Crit. For that vicious brain-wave you deserve a few notches docked from your triple-digit rating, there, Mitchell. And you owe Crit an apology.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Jack meant it rhetorically. A name is just a name, whether it's a given name or a pseudonym.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Jack_Mitchell Jack Mitchell

Sorry, my joke was obscure. I meant to imply that CR's nick could hardly, in some people's eyes, have detracted from the credibility of the overall byline.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Ooh, now that's low.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

She could have said "a commenter who identifies himself as Kermit the Frog", but that might have taken away from the message.

http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

That would break Taber's "secret source" style.

wilson

Good to see journalists recognising the importance of Bloggers.
Without Bloggers, the media woud have 'disappeared' Climategate.

Dot

I enjoyed your performance in Cast Away.

Wascally Wabbit

Crit-reasoning is obviously Ms. Blatchford – I don't know how you guys have missed it for so long!
Sorry Mr. Wells – couldn't resist!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Jenn_ Jenn_

Oooh, now that's really low!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Brammer Brammer

So how long until SH visits the GG and prorogues parliament 'cause they are not playing nice and threatening democracy etc.

…cue the tv ads and 10 percenters *sigh*

http://intensedebate.com/people/Sir_Francis Sir_Francis

The House is on its Christmas recess, fortunately for Harper: he gets to walk away rather than run away.

Orson Bean

My impression is that even people who are congenitally sympathetic (or at least tolerant) towards the Harper govt are not happy with the way they've handled this whole detainee issue. And it goes beyond McKay. Personally, I'm kind of scratching my head. Maybe the govt thought this story wouldn't have "legs", but this is the kind of story that's almost guaranteed to have legs, because it lends itself to having journalists pore over various records, interview lots of people (there's practically an endless list of people you could interview) etc. That results in new information coming out in dribs and drabs for an extended period of time, a la Watergate. The govt should call some sort of inquiry or independent investigation, not only because it's the right thing to do morally, but also because otherwise this story has the potential to be this huge black hole that sucks all the energy and oxygen out of Ottawa.