‘It’s irresponsible the way they throw these words around’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 8:45 AM - 7 Comments

Dick Cheney does not appreciate the tone adopted by the likes of Don Davies.

“Now we have a lot of people running around using language like ‘torture.’ I heard one of your members of Parliament saying we used it on hundreds of people at Guantanamo. Not true,” said Mr. Cheney, who became a lightning rod for critics of the Bush administration, particularly over the war on Iraq, during his eight years as vice-president.

“We did not use torture. … We did what we absolutely needed to do. We had an obligation to gather intelligence to ensure that we didn’t get struck again, and I think it worked,” he said, noting that Mr. Mohammed, in particular, produced a “gold mine” of information “after he’d been through the process.”

The utility of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a matter of some debate. So far as the hunt for Osama bin Laden, for instance, John McCain has said that torturing Mr. Mohammed actually produced false and misleading information.

More Palin-tology

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Friday, September 23, 2011 at 3:35 PM - 7 Comments

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Finally, conclusive proof that good fences do not in fact make good neighbours. Even 14-foot high ones, like the monstrosity Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, and his buddies hastily erected on the edge of the couple’s Wasilla, Alaska, property in the spring of 2010. What the Palins were famously trying to block, of course, were the prying eyes of author Joe McGinniss, who had rented the house next door while researching a book about the Republican party’s foremost shopper. Having a writer best known for his critical take on politics and politicians in such close proximity was a “creepy” infringement on her family’s rights and privacy, the former vice-presidential candidate complained. It was a desperate attempt to gather dirt for a “hit piece,” she said.

McGinniss’s newly published tome, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, proves that his target’s instincts were correct. But she needn’t have gone to such trouble to obscure the sightlines. However close the author’s view, it wasn’t all that perspicacious.

Sure, there are some titillating bits of gossip, like the tale of Palin snorting lines of coke off the bottom of an overturned oil drum during a snowmobiling expedition, at some unspecified point before she became governor. (An anonymously sourced allegation that first surfaced on a blog in 2007.) Or the revelation that she slept with Glen Rice, a college basketball player who went on to play for the NBA’s Miami Heat, back before she married Todd. (A one-night stand that McGinniss uses to advance the thesis that Palin had a “fetish for black guys,” just four paragraphs after suggesting she transferred from Hawaii Pacific University to a small Idaho college because of her discomfort with “people of colour.”) The self-described “Hockey Mom” is also, apparently, an indifferent parent who hardly ever goes to games, has a loveless marriage, and is a completely hopeless housekeeper. “She couldn’t do grilled cheese. She’d burn water,” quoth someone described as “an old friend.”

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An elephant worthy of Cervantes

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Palani Mohan/GETTY IMAGES‘The Elephant’s Journey’: Saramago’s final book is both a departure—a Renaissance-style human comedy—and a fitting epitaph for the Nobel laureate

THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY
José Saramago

Two years before his death at 87 in June, José Saramago—voice of peasant sensibility and hyper-modern stylist, unrepentant Marxist, and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature—completed his last novel, now available in English. It’s more a fairy tale than a novel, certainly not the sort of searing social commentary that made his reputation in works such as Blindness. But Saramago’s take on a remarkable historical fact—the slow progress of an elephant from Lisbon to Vienna in 1551, a wedding gift from the king of Portugal to the archduke of Austria—is as much a satire, albeit far funnier and more gentle than most, as anything he ever wrote.

Saramago is well-known for his all-encompassing view of creation, the way in which dogs often have a major presence in his novels, the better to remind readers that humans are not the only creatures who matter (or feel, or even think). Naturally, that rings true even more for his elephant, a beast as kindly as any human in the tale—when, affronted, he kicks a priest trying to exorcize a supposed demon, the elephant is careful to break no bones—and often notably smarter, as befits his name, Solomon. He’s at least as much a leading character as his philosophical Indian driver, who goes by Subhro until the Austrians confirm his utter fish-out-of-water status by renaming him Fritz.

The Elephant’s Journey is, in a very real sense, Saramago’s late-in-life musing on his craft. He constantly breaks into the narrative, on one occasion to explain that many things happen not quite by chance but because one word follows “sweetly and naturally” after another, and so drives the story in a new direction. Or to praise the virtues of onomatopoeia: when a man on a mist-shrouded path disappears from sight, Saramago notes: “He went plof. Imagine if we’d had to provide a detailed description. It would have taken at least 10 pages. Plof.” But it’s also a charming story, a Renaissance-style human comedy reminiscent of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. For a great writer’s epitaph, it doesn’t get any better than that.

- Brian Bethune

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How partisan politics are hurting immigration reform

By John Parisella - Monday, August 16, 2010 at 7:03 PM - 0 Comments

(AP Photo/Paul J. Bereswill)

Last October, I had a public conversation with President George W. Bush in Montreal during which I had the privilege of asking him questions about his presidency. When I asked him what was his biggest disappointment, he answered without hesitation it was his failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Along with Republican Senator John McCain and the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, he had tried to forge a bipartisan consensus to secure the country’s borders and develop a path to citizenship for anywhere between 12 to 20 million undocumented immigrants. Bush was in the latter stages of his presidency and the politics inside the Republican party made it impossible to reach a consensus on reform. The problem hasn’t disappeared. In fact, it has just gotten worse.

Enter Arizona. The problem along the Arizona border with active Mexican drug cartels soon transformed the debate into one about law and order and border security. The law enacted by Gov. Jan Brewer brought in stringent measures, including giving police a near-universal right right to round up illegal aliens. Just recently, a federal judge upheld most parts of the law, but blocked key provisions that could have led to widespread racial profiling. The battlelines have therefore been drawn between hard line Republicans who want to secure the border above all else and blame Obama for worsening the problem, and Democrats who see obvious political advantages in mobilizing the Latino and progressive voters pushing them to enact reforms.

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The importance of Jon Stewart

By John Parisella - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 5:07 PM - 0 Comments

When you ask the twentysomething crowd where they get their news, few will mention the daily newspaper or the mainstream nightly news anchors. Most get their information from a laptop or a phone, and many will admit The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart accounts for much of their take on what’s up and what’s down in U.S. politics these days.

Given my new vantage point in New York City, I decided to see for myself what the fuss is all about. To be perfectly honest, I am a little behind the curve here—Stewart’s popularity steadily rising over the past decade and Colbert’s success alone as a spinoff from The Daily Show says a lot about the latter’s strength in the marketplace. So about a week ago, courtesy of a friend who is a writer on the show, I attended a taping of Jon Stewart’s show.

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Sarah Palin is unstoppable

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 196 Comments

Photograph by Sally Ryan/The New York Times/ Redux

John McCain thought he needed to spring one more surprise on America.

In August 2008, his presidential campaign against Barack Obama was listing badly. Some of this was his fault. But after eight years of George W. Bush, anyone representing the Republican party came with a lot of baggage. McCain needed to choose a candidate for vice-president who underlined his reputation as a maverick within the party and who was untainted by close ties to the previous administration. The stakes were high. As John Heilemann and Mark Halperin write in Game Change, their book about the campaign, “If McCain’s running mate selection didn’t fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race, it was lights out.”

McCain’s original plan was to partner with Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic nominee for vice-president. McCain hoped such a choice would prove his bipartisan credentials, steal thunder from his opponents, and back-foot the press­—allowing his campaign to regain some momentum. But when word of the Lieberman plan leaked, much of the Republican party rebelled, and McCain was forced to scramble. “We need to have a transformative, electrifying moment in this campaign,” McCain strategist Steve Schmidt said. No one on the short list of alternative candidates could deliver this. Schmidt suggested a new option: Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

There wasn’t time to vet Palin properly, or to probe her thoughts on foreign and domestic policy. Picking Palin was a Hail Mary pass in the dying seconds of a championship game. But McCain met and liked her. She was confident and calm. She wasn’t afraid to burn bridges and upset people, even in the Republican party. She was an outsider, like him. Steve Schmidt told McCain choosing Palin could hurt him. But a safer candidate, he said, wouldn’t help. It would be better to go for the win and lose big than to tiptoe to a narrow defeat. “High risk, high reward,” another one of McCain’s advisers cautioned. “You shouldn’t have told me that,” McCain replied. “I’ve been a risk taker all my life.”

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'We need more of this kind of leadership and ideas exchanged between the parties'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 8, 2010 at 12:52 PM - 14 Comments

In lavish detail, Nate Silver explains how Washington might create its own Question Time. Meanwhile, former McCain campaign strategist Mark McKinnon posits that a regular QT might help leach “partisan poison” from Capitol Hill.

All of which may serve to remind that it is not necessarily the institution or the idea of Question Period that is the problem here in Ottawa, so much as how it is used.

Walk, chew gum

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 2:22 PM - 47 Comments

Dec. 30, 2009. More than 30 bills will die on the order paper, with more than half of them part of the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. But the Prime Minister’s Office said the goal is to continue focusing on the economy, with consultations on budgetary matters in the next two months. “This is the time to recalibrate, consult and deliver the next stage of our plan that we outlined last year in Budget 2009,” said spokesman Dimitri Soudas. He said that Canada has done relatively well during the recent global recession, but said “we’re not out of the woods yet.”

Sept. 24, 2008. America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen … Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.

The exit strategy is success

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:28 PM - 16 Comments

Wisdom from John McCain:

Setting exit dates from conflicts such as Afghanistan “defeats the entire purpose of sending people over there,” according to United States Senator John McCain, who said Monday that establishing security is paramount for success in the country.

McCain, who spent the weekend at a security conference in Halifax, told CTV’s Canada AM that the primary goal of warfare is “to break the will of the enemy.”

However, with the Canadian mission scheduled to end in 2011 and the Dutch and the British threatening to withdraw troops if President Hamid Karzai doesn’t take steps to tackle rampant corruption, militants know all they have to do is hang in until the pullout dates.

“If you announce that you’re leaving after a certain period of time, then of course you have the opposite effect on the enemy, who decides they’ll be there and they’ll just hang around until you leave,” McCain said.

More:

U.S. Senator John McCain says military exit dates and exit strategies in Afghanistan should not even be discussed until NATO gets the upper hand in its fight against Taliban militants.

McCain told the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday that “success” in the war-torn country is the way out of the conflict.

“The exit strategy is success,” he said. “It’s when you succeed and start to draw down.”

I seem to remember certain Canadian politicians saying much the same thing, once. But there were statesmen then…

Meghan McCain fights back, Georgia May Jagger models, and Jean Sarkozy gets a boost

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, October 23, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 2 Comments

The thorn in Stelmach’s side
It was a rough week for Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach. A new poll suggests he and his Progressive Conservatives are in free fall. His televised speech, intended to reassure Albertans about his handling of the recession, was widely panned and his attempt to set an austerity example with a 15-per-cent cut in his premier’s allowance fell on deaf ears. The nurses’ and teachers’ unions have rejected his call for voluntary wage freezes. And on Saturday, the Wildrose Alliance chose former journalist Danielle Smith as its new leader—continuing the Alliance’s evolution from cranky protest party to credible conservative alternative.

To ghostbust, you must first believe
Peter Aykroyd, an 87-year-old former federal civil servant who lives in a spirit-infested family homestead north of Kingston, Ont., has penned one of the season’s odder memoirs. A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters tells the multi-generational story of his spiritualist family. The foreword is supplied by his famous son, Dan, Saturday Night Live comedian and co-writer of the hit movie Ghostbusters. Dan writes how his family, from his great-grandfather onwards, were serious and scientific investigators of the paranormal. “Part of Ghostbusters’ appeal derives from the cold, rational, acceptance-of the-fantastic-as-routine tone that Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, director Ivan Reitman, and I were able to sustain in the movie,” he writes. With good reason: the Aykroyds are believers. Dan’s grandfather was a Bell Telephone engineer who considered the possibility of contacting the spirit realm via a crystal radio set. And one of Dan’s daughters, he writes, claims “glops of light and other shapes attend her when pictures are taken in and around the old family farmhouse.”

They did it for their families
An extramarital affair with a legislative assembly clerk has damaged the personal life and reputation of Northwest Territories Premier Floyd Roland. Now his political future rests with Ted Hughes, a no-nonsense former judge and one-time B.C. conflict-of-interest commissioner. Hughes conducted a hearing in Yellowknife to determine if Roland breached the public trust by keeping secret his relationship with clerk Patricia Russell. Both were married and have since left their spouses to live together. During the hearing Russell denied allegations she shared confidential caucus discussions with her lover. Roland told Hughes they kept the affair secret out of consideration for their families. Hughes may table his report by the end of October.

Beatles vs. Stones, next generation
The children of two of rock’s biggest names have taken a different approach to fame. James McCartney, son of Paul, has always avoided attention. He recently debuted his band Light to just 30 people in a tiny Oxford pub. McCartney, 32, and his band went to extraordinary attempts to conceal the name and parentage of their lead singer. “James has a way with melody,” wrote an approving gossip columnist for the tabloid Sun, “and a set of pipes which are more than a match for his dad’s.” Meantime, Mick Jagger’s toothy daughter Georgia May Jagger is sprawled topless atop a Union Jack in a new advertising campaign for Hudson Jeans. While crossed arms or strategic camera angles keep the photos just on this side of decency, they have still caused a stir, because, to paraphrase an old Beatles tune, she is just 17.

This little piggy went to Paris
Newsmakers spoke in haste last week when it suggested Paris Hilton was unlikely to acquire a British-bred micro-pig because the extremely intelligent animals aren’t available in the U.S. Hilton has now ordered a bred-in-the-U.S. Royal Dandie Extreme miniature pot-bellied pig from an Oregon breeder. “So excited for my new piglette [sic] to come home to me,” she Tweeted on Friday. The always predictable folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are less than enthused, saying she treats her pets as “disposable.” In fact, the pet-loving Hilton has quite a menagerie; it’s boyfriends that end up in the discard pile.

From hell, straight to Whistler
Skateboarding San Diego chef Dave Levey survived the fire-and-brimstone of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay to win the top prize on his Hell’s Kitchen reality show on Fox TV. Levey wins a job for a year working under executive chef James Walt at Araxi Restaurant in Whistler. He starts Jan. 4, barely a month before the start of the Winter Olympics. Of course, he’s survived greater challenges. Not only did he endure the usual hazing by Ramsay, he spent most of the competition in pain after breaking his wrist. Such grit, combined with the 32-year-old’s skater-boy vibe, should make for a perfect Whistler fit. Levey says the tightly edited reality show was mostly real. “What people saw,” he says, “is very similar to who I am.”

Curves and all
Meghan McCain, daughter of former U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain, would like to get something off her chest. “Don’t call me a Slut,” she thundered in her column on the Daily Beast website. The furor erupted after McCain used Twitter to post a picture of herself spilling out of a low-cut tank top. Reaction to a revealing photo of a Republican-values gal generated almost as much Web traffic as a certain Colorado family’s errant balloon. First an abashed McCain Tweeted an apology: “I have clearly made a huge mistake and am sorry 2 those that are offended.” Then she got mad. “Honest, I don’t feel that I have anything to feel ashamed of,” she wrote in her column. “I’ve always embraced my curves and will continue to do so.”

Kids say the darnedest things
Lisa Scott of Paulina, La., promised her son Tyren she’d take him to see U.S. President Barack Obama, so last Thursday they went to the President’s town hall meeting in New Orleans. Tyren raised his hand during a question period and Obama gave him the floor. “I have to say, why do people hate you?” he stammered. “They supposed to love you…. God is love.” The President gave a diplomatic reply about how such anger is politically motivated, and people are worried about their futures. The answer was fine, but the question later gave some commentators pause. Just when and why had the hate and rage so troubling to a young boy become a daily part of American discourse? “It was a pretty good question, I must say,” Tyren’s mother later reflected.

Free from Evin
Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari was released on bail Saturday after almost four months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Maziar, who holds dual Iranian- Canadian citizenship, was arrested June 21 after reporting on the demonstrations following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. “Hopefully this is a sign that other journalists who continue to languish in jail in Iran will also be released in the near future,” said Annie Game, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expres sion. Bahari’s wife, Paola Gourley, is confined to a London hospital where she is due to give birth to their first child on Oct. 26. It’s unclear if Bahari, who still faces charges, can leave Tehran to attend the birth.

Fortunately, only the marriage is dead
Just three years ago they were rockers in love. The musical marriage in 2006 of Avril Lavigne and Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley ended last week with Lavigne filing for divorce. Neither said what caused their “irreconcilable differences.” Lavigne was seen this summer in St. Tropez with oil heir Brandon Davis. Whibley was recently in Las Vegas with model Hanna Beth Merjos. It may simply be they married too young. As Lavigne said on her website, “Deryck and I have been together for 6 years. We have been friends since I was 17, started dating when I was 19, and married when I was 21. I am grateful for our time together, and I am grateful and blessed for our remaining friendship.” And Whibley is grateful to be alive. Internet rumours last weekend had him dead—not a good start to single life. Luckily that was just a hoax.

Spacing out
There’s a bit of a ham in any politician but the Elvis-loving former Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi is uncommonly blessed. He once famously crooned the King’s tunes while on an official tour of Presley’s Graceland mansion. But now Koizumi, 67, is really reaching for the stars. His newest gig is as a voice actor for an extraterrestrial hero who fights aliens from outer space in the movie Mega Monster Ball: Ultra Galaxy. Sure, it was great to be premier of a major world power, but being Ultraman King has its advantages.

Sarko’s son also rises
Jean Sarkozy, all of 23 and repeating his second year at the Sorbonne, has been given a boost into the family business by his father Nicolas. The French president has appointed his son chairman of La Défense, the public agency administering France’s biggest business district, in west Paris. There are predictable cries of nepotism and even some of Sarkozy’s cabinet squirm at claims he is running a presidential monarchy. Sarkozy has denounced the “hysterical manhunt” against his son. Jean maintains a dignified silence, relying on what critics concede are two of his greatest assets: his golden good looks and his very nice hair.

Limbaugh and Beck's strange patriotism

By John Parisella - Monday, October 5, 2009 at 7:15 PM - 48 Comments

Last Friday, the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janiero for the 2016 Summer Olympics, a wise choice by the Olympic movement as these will be the first games ever held in South America. Anyone who knows anything about Olympic decision-making knows the IOC is among the most mysterious and byzantine organizations in the world. Like the Vatican, it operates in a virtual vacuum and is nearly immune to outside pressures. Given this, Barack Obama’s appearance in Copenhagen to push Chicago’s bid was hardly guaranteed to make it a fait accompli. If anything, it may have been counterproductive. That said, it would have been difficult for Obama to turn down the opportunity when other heads of state, like Brazil’s Lula and Spain’s King Juan Carlos, were scheduled to attend.

Granted, it was not a banner day for the American president. But the elation of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and a congregation of observers associated with the Weekly Standard at the news of Chicago’s failure to land the Games suggests their obsession with seeing Obama fail at any cost has reached new heights. With over 80% of Americans supporting the lone U.S. bid, one has to wonder about their strange interpretation of patriotism.

Continue…

Dislike Obama? You must be racist.

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 427 Comments

A year ago, in the final stretch of the U.S. election campaign, I would find myself in New York or Los Angeles or points in between and asked for my thoughts on who would win. I usually answered “John McCain,” more in hope than expectation: I’ve no use for the soi-disant “maverick,” who was a catastrophic candidate, but in those heady days between Sarah Palin’s boffo convention speech and McCain’s characteristically inept response to the economic meltdown there was briefly a faint chance that the Alaskan governor might yet save the Republican party from its rendezvous with destiny.

And at that point the worldly liberal Democrat who had sought my views would nod thoughtfully and agree: yes, McCain would win. Not because of Sarah Palin. But because Americans were too racist to stomach the thought of a black man in the White House. Continue…

One year ago

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 3:53 AM - 74 Comments

This weekend marks the first anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s death.

Now is probably a fine time to reread his coverage of John McCain’s 2000 campaign—the Rolling Stone article is here, the expanded book version can be purchased here.

The Believer interview I excerpted a year ago, is now available in it entirety, all 6,000 words. His struggle, discussed there, with modern political journalism is only more relevant. Continue…

My friends

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 1:24 AM - 10 Comments

Whatever the merits of Mr. Ignatieff’s current stump speech, his advisors should be worried about the emergence of a particular two-word phrase that surely ranks among the least effective vocal tics in recent rhetorical history.

McCain v. Bush, Canada's old torch, and Gov. Schwarzenegger's stimulus plan

By Lianne George - Friday, September 4, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

In a Toronto minute
Former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant was charged on Tuesday with criminal negligence causing death after an altercation he was involved in Monday night ended in tragedy. Bryant had allegedly been driving his black convertible Saab in Toronto’s swanky Yorkville neighbourhood around 9:45 p.m. when he collided with a cyclist, 34-year-old Darcy Allen Sheppard, and an argument ensued. Witnesses told police that at one point the cyclist hung onto the driver’s side of the car while the driver swerved into the oncoming lane, sped up, and drove up onto the curb in an effort to shake the cyclist off. Eventually, the cyclist let go after hitting a mailbox. He fell off the car in front of Sephora, the cosmetics emporium, with severe head trauma, and died later that night. Leaving the police department on Tuesday afternoon, Bryant tearfully made a brief public statement: “I want to extend my deepest condolences to the family of Mr. Sheppard,” he said.

Hacked
Apparently, not even the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve is safe from identity theft. Last week, officials revealed that Ben Bernanke and his wife, Anna, were victims of identity theft last year when Anna’s purse was stolen from a Starbucks in Washington. “Our family was but one of 500 separate instances traced to one crime ring,” Bernanke said. In fact, identity theft has become so rampant that it even happens right under the government’s nose. In Miami, a former government “hacker hunter” stands accused of committing the largest cases of identity theft in U.S. history. Albert Gonzales, 28, is alleged to have stolen more than 170 million credit card and debit card numbers. First arrested for hacking in 2003, Gonzales managed to avoid punishment by agreeing to become a Secret Service informant. For the past five years, he has allegedly divided his time between hacking into the systems of Fortune 500 companies and stealing information, and helping the feds bust other hackers. Gonzales is currently negotiating a plea bargain. “My client is extremely remorseful as to what has happened,” his lawyer told the Associated Press. Continue…

Dick Cheney strikes again

By John Parisella - Monday, August 31, 2009 at 5:33 PM - 9 Comments

It did not take long for politics to resume its usual course following the moving funeral services for Sen. Edward Kennedy. On the Fox News Sunday show, former vice-president Dick Cheney threw another salvo at the Obama administration over Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to name a special prosecutor to investigate specific cases of torture by CIA. Cheney called John Dunham’s appointment an intolerable political act by Obama and claimed to be deeply offended by the decision. He added that Obama is pursuing a course that will make America more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Holder’s decision is undoubtedly controversial, since many on the left would have preferred a full-blown investigation that would certainly have included Cheney. Those on the right—led principally by Cheney and, to a lesser degree, the congressional Republican leadership—counter that Dunham’s investigation will affect morale at the CIA and will make future administrations hesitant to take actions to safeguard American security.

It should be noted that Dunham is already investigating the C.I.A.’s destruction of tapes that reportedly featured some of the most abhorrent tactics in the agency’s arsenal, including water boarding. These interrogations were performed with the encouragement of senior officials associated with Cheney, and Dunham’s initial investigation was authorized by President Bush’s last attorney general, not the Democrats. All Holder has done is widen the scope of Dunham’s investigation. He has not in any way made Cheney or his cohorts the subject of it. Granted, the findings may be damaging to people like Cheney, but it is unlikely to result in a full-scale probe of the Bush Administration, complete with show trials into its conduct of the war on terrorism. It is for this reason that the left is not satisfied with the Holder move. Continue…

Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Everyone loves a stampede
On Saturday, the leaders of Canada’s three major parties turned up in Calgary to take part in Stampede festivities and slip in a little meal-time campaigning. Speaking at a breakfast at the Calgary Zoo, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff blasted the Tories for their latest attack ads, which imply that the Bloc Québécois favours leniency for pedophiles. “I’m in politics to defeat the Bloc Québécois with real arguments,” Ignatieff told the crowd, “rather than slurs and vicious ad hominem personal attacks.” Not far away, at a barbecue in Heritage Park, Prime Minister Stephen Harper slammed the Liberals’ “timid and trendy” foreign policies and the NDP’s ethos of “tax and spend.” “Let the opposition parties threaten to get together to defeat us and replace us,” he said. “Canadians have been clear that they do not want another election.” Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton, invited by Calgary Herald reporter Don Braid to a barbecue at the Ranchmen’s Club, a well-known Conservative hangout, played nice, worked the room and, according to Braid, had “friendly chats with several people I wasn’t sure would talk to him at all.” He even braved a prairie oyster. “Not bad,” Layton said. “I think I’ll have another one.” Continue…

When keeping it partisan goes wrong (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 54 Comments

“I don’t think I should have used that word and I was wrong to do it.”
—John McCain, March 16, 2007. 

“Mr. Speaker, that honourable colleague is a man with whom I have had disagreements but for whom I have respect. On this occasion though, I cannot believe that he would attempt to inject that meaning into that expression. He clearly understands that my reference had absolutely nothing to do with the one that he implied. I have worked hard to represent people of all backgrounds and I have always done so in a spirit of tolerance. My reference to the term ‘tar baby’ was a common reference that refers to issues that stick to one. The leader of the Liberal Party has taken this position. It has stuck to him, and now he is having difficulty explaining himself on that issue. For him or for his House leader to inject racial politics in order to distract from that is the worst kind of base politics. I would encourage them to apologize for it.”
—Pierre Poilievre, responding to Ralph Goodale’s point of order after QP today.

The entirety of today’s discussion after the jump. Continue…

The Debate On Torture

By John Parisella - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 10 Comments

With fears of a potential swine flu epidemic sweeping the world, and with the report cards coming in on Obama’s first 100 days, you would think the debate on the torture memos from the Bush–Cheney era would be off the table. It is possible that White House officials believed Obama’s preference that we learn from them and move on would be enough to circumscribe the issue and carry the day. But they were living in fantasyland if they believed that this dramatic news item would be a one week wonder. In fact, it was the president’s about face on prosecution that kept the news story going and will probably make it a dominant issue throughout the next 100 days.

Continue…

'Assuage the bitterness'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 12, 2009 at 4:15 PM - 16 Comments

Interesting point from a New York Times story on whether Barack Obama’s arrival will change the debate in Washington.

“It’s worth noting that nearly every Inaugural Address ever delivered includes some variation on the ‘change the tone’ theme: Zachary Taylor in 1849 praised efforts to ‘assuage the bitterness’; Benjamin Harrison in 1889 said ‘we should hold our differing opinions in mutual respect’; Calvin Coolidge in 1925 insisted ‘there is no salvation in a narrow and bigoted partisanship.’”

There will, of course, be various reports of newfound civility and cooperation around here as the resumption of Parliament approaches. A few days ago, for instance, there was this (Jan. 9, “Harper pushes for co-operation on upcoming budget”). All of which, you might suspect, will prove about as solemn a vow as this (Nov. 7, “Harper seeks co-operation in Commons”) and this (Oct. 15, “Harper pledges co-operation after election”).

Could the current state of affairs in Ottawa be improved upon? That depends, I suppose—first, on how badly you view the present situation; and second, as noted above, on how edifying you believe our politics to have been through the decades. If you believe that proceedings have been better, it only stands to reason that the proceedings could be better. If you regard Ottawa as an eternal cesspool beyond any and all hope, you can probably stop reading (both this post specifically and everything else posted here in general).

The rest of you, onward.

Continue…

2008: What A Year!

By John Parisella - Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 11:01 AM - 2 Comments

How else can you describe it? Thanks to Maclean’s for giving me the opportunity to share with readers in the blogosphere my impressions about the US presidential race from the perspective of a challenger who was 22 percent behind in the national polls at this stage last year. Thanks, too, to the readers and responders along the way. Many disagreed with me but were not disagreeable. While it may not always show, the more conservative, pro-Republican responders made me think and I am grateful. I still believe conservatism is a vital and essential part of American political thought. Just like liberalism needed to rethink its basic tenets from the 70′s on, I believe 2008 is the beginning of the next conservative revolution. This is just the way America works—checks and balances on its institutions and, more importantly, on its political thinking.

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Iggy's choice

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 6:40 PM - 47 Comments

Last week, Michael Ignatieff publicly and semi-publicly endorsed the coalition and Stephane Dion. Reluctantly or not, he signed his name to the deal in a letter to the Governor General. He is now widely assumed to be less than enthusiastic about leading a coalition government. And Stephen Harper is making public overtures in his direction.

So which will it be? Will he side with the coalition he still contractually stands behind? Or will he entertain negotiations with a Prime Minister his party has damned as completely unworthy of trust? Split the difference and abstain from a budget vote, you say?

“I can’t assure you of anything,” Mr. Ignatieff said when the economic statement was introduced. “I’ll just tell you what I know about the mood of my party.  We are tired of sitting down. Is that clear?”

If you remove that from the list then, the choices are fairly straightforward. Negotiation. Coalition (or Election). And therein lies the first real test of Ignatieff’s leadership. Continue…

Behold the ridiculousness of this existence

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 10:19 PM - 24 Comments

For some months now, the Prime Minister’s Office has been conducting periodic briefings for reporters—usually bureau chiefs, but generally one representative from each of the major media outlets. John, Paul and I have regularly attended (except when we don’t get the note). The topics discussed typically range from the Prime Minister’s itinerary to upcoming government action to the PMO’s spin on whatever happens to be making news at the moment.

There is only one rule at these briefings: the government official conducting the briefing must not be identified by name.

Everyone in the room agrees to this. And, in the myriad reports that follow, any information gleaned subsequently cited to a “senior government source” or some such.

This is now widely accepted practice. But, er, why? Continue…

How Obama survived the smears

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 6:05 PM - 20 Comments

A week before Americans cast their votes, Brian Moore, the Socialist Party’s nominee for the White House, was on the Colbert Report discussing Obama’s candidacy. “He’s a [capitalist],” Moore complained of his Democratic rival. “His party is a capitalist party and he’s propping up the capitalist system with the bailout.” Communists, socialists and the rest of the normally splintered far left all seemed to agree: Obama is not one us.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, however, had come to a vastly different conclusion. While McCain was describing Obama as America’s “redistributionist in chief”, Palin was warning voters “now is not the time to experiment with socialism.” Republicans had spent the entire campaign trying to pin a label on the Illinois senator. Obama’s reluctance to wear a flag pin on his lapel left him open to charges of unpatriotism; the outbursts of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, coupled with unfounded rumours about Michelle Obama’s supposedly racist thesis on race relations had others accusing him of ties to black nationalist movements; his middle name (Hussein) and his early education in Indonesia were often trotted out as evidence he is (or once was) a closet Muslim; and finally, as if being described as a toxic combination of Hugo Chavez and Louis Farrakhan weren’t enough, Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers had Palin accusing him of “palling around with terrorists.”

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