Example of the Anti-Merger, Anti-Mulroney Media in Action
You might also want to note that this comes from our leftist, Liberal/NDP supporting CBC. Interspersed, are my comments which I hope may prove useful in reading anything from our government supported, government organ.
It is truly amazing to note David Orchard's strenuous criticisms of Peter MacKay for reneging on the PC leadership convention deal. The optics of that convention should have given Orchard pause. The arrival in the hall of Brian Mulroney, keynote speaker, the standing ovations and constant cheers for the last Tory messiah, were proof positive that the general mood of the delegates was all in favour of Mulroney's message which was: "Free Trade is great" and "Unite the right, please."
My Commentary:
Free trade must have been one of Mulroney's great ideas; JC, OUR CORRUPT PM PROMISED TO GET RID OF FREE TRADE, THEN KEPT IT, THUS BREAKING HIS PROMISE. Of course, everyone is so used to his breaking his promises and being involved in shady, partisan political appointments, dirty tricks on his political enemies and corruption, that no-one expects him to be honourable. Do we? Do you? . . . . I thought so. NJC
What Orchard got wrong was that MacKay had always been in bed with Mulroney. MacKay's dad, Elmer, was a fierce Mulroney loyalist and supporter. Elmer understood that Orchard or no Orchard common sense called for what Mulroney the godfather was dishing out to the faithful at the leadership podium.
Orchard also did not understand that to Mulroney he was an outsider, a left-wing crank with no real credentials in the Conservative party. Orchard didn't understand Mulroney's ambition and ego drive to erase the 1993 Tory debacle one way or another.
The 1993 election saw Mulroney's Western base destroyed by the election of 52 Manningites or Reformers. Mulroney's 63 Quebec seats were decimated by Lucien Bouchard's defection and the creation of the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc won 54 seats in 1993; the Tories lost 167.
All that was galling to a politician like Mulroney. It hurt him to hear both from the media and the politicians that he had got out from under just in the nick of time. Mulroney, they said, was responsible for the 1993 Tory two-seat disaster, a disaster that inevitably spelt an end to the old PC party. Mulroney, they said, was the most hated political leader in Canadian history; 1993 proved that after Mulroney came the deluge.
For someone as thin-skinned as Mulroney, these charges or innuendoes really hurt. Certainly his Irish soul was not affected a wit by the charge that he was too smarmy, too in bed with the hated Americans to deserve the affection and respect of his fellow Canadians.
My Commentary:
Is Mr. Mulroney thin-skinned? He took more media pounding than our present really corrupt PM has had to withstand -- and he kept on going. I admire that. Is that thin-skinned? I never saw him whine and I watched him in an interview discussing his tenure after he left office. He simply pointed out the ironies of the situation -- that there has been more corruption emanating from JCs office and government than ever emanated from the previous government. NJC
Nor did Mulroney really worry or care about his hated GST. Mulroney preferred an open tax to a hidden one and was satisfied that he was doing the right thing. Nor did he care too much that he was loathed by academics and pointy-headed thinkers from all parties and persuasions.
Mulroney's ferocious anger and deep dislikes always focus on the personal. [Note that proof of this is missing. There is greater public evidence of JCs petty revenges on Paul Martin. NJC] Chrétien's treatment of Mulroney on Airbus was precisely the kind of thing that drove Mulroney up a wall. To Mulroney it was part of a Chrétien campaign to vilify and destroy Mulroney 's reputation. The libel suit and the apology won the day but it certainly did not take Mulroney out of the category of the most hated prime minister in Canadian history.
My Commentary:
I beg to differ! Many Canadians have re-assessed Brian Mulroney over the years since he left office and we have come to a somewhat different conclusion. Stevie Cameron wrote a book that impugned him and his government but nothing stuck to Brian Mulroney. Rememeber?
***Brian Mulroney won his libel suit and an apology and $25 M.***
Another aspect about Mr. Mulroney that I have noted and I consider it an important measure of the man. He has kept friends for 40 or more years -- friends from his college days, as well as friends in politics and all over the world. A truly corrupt person cannot keep friends for 40 years, I do not believe. How many political friends do you think JC will carry into retirement? . . . . Now, what do you think? NJC
[In here is criticism of Mulroney's relationship with the media. The key to the article and the reason for rehashing Mulroney's past comes next.]
But all these were minor compared to the complaint that Mulroney was a coward who abandoned the Tory ship to Manning and the Bloc, and was responsible for the worst electoral disaster in Canadian history. The charge that Mulroney was the real destroyer of the Tory party bothered him enormously. Mulroney felt that the West and Bouchard had betrayed him and his legacy. It was Manning and Bouchard who did the Tory party in, not Brian Mulroney.
Mulroney wasn't satisfied with his new role as the pal of the Bush family and three American presidents. Nor was he satisfied to just sit on boards and have big corporate clients both in Canada and the United States. Mulroney's fat cat look, his comfort in his newfound wealth and prestige, was not enough to assuage the hurt pride of the great blarney merchant.
My Commentary:
Note how the writer drags to the fore anything that could make Mr. Mulroney look too rich, too successful, too able to hob nob with the powerful. This is intentional; in true Canadian fashion, the writer makes the ordinary bloke jealous of Mulroney's life--and Canadians love to hammer down any nail that pops up as the biggest or best nail in the board. What the writer has accomplished is that readers translate this distrust of our former PM who was not nearly as corrupt as our present PM into distrust of all with which Mulroney is involved. Once you realize this, you can read these columns and think about what the writer is trying to accomplish politically. The writer wants the merger to fail. NJC
It was this hurt pride that made Brian Mulroney come to the rescue of the Tory party, led by his child disciple, Peter MacKay. Mulroney's fingerprints are all over the MacKay-Harper deal.
[. . . .]
But even better than that, it was Mulroney as godfather of the new Tory party who brought Bill Davis into the picture. Former Ontario premier Davis's credentials as a Dalton Camp Red Tory are impressive. If Davis was prepared to act on behalf of Mulroney the godfather, how could MacKay, Mulroney's disciple, do anything but agree?
The Bill Davis signing on was a real boost up for Mulroney. . . . It was the Red Tories and their friends in the media who spread the base canard that it was Mulroney, not Kim Campbell, who had killed the Tory party.
[. . . .]
Mulroney and Davis both held out for a leadership race of the new party to be based on each riding being equal no matter the size of the membership. That is 200 Quebec members in one riding got the same vote for leader as 10,000 Calgary members in another riding.
My Commentary:
This is my great worry about the merger. The vote will be lopsided. I still believe in one person, one vote. However, I understand that there are other good reasons to have representatives represent the views of their ridings which avoids two consequences of one person, one vote.
1. People who have been working for and involved in the party for a long time are (hopefully) the ones who are chosen as convention delegates; usually, they know something about the political process and their party's ins and outs -- and perhaps are better equipped to vote for a leader.
2. The leader becomes beholden to and subject to input from and criticism from the ridings. They can curb the excesses of the person they select -- it is hoped. They can advise.
3. One person, one vote can lead to the highjacking of the political process to people who just join to get in on the vote for a leader.
The last one is a valid complaint from the Red Tory PCs who are afraid of being inundated and the vote for/against a merger being overwhelmed by new members. Realistically, if the PCs ever hope to come to power, they must consider a merger. They should even reconsider their extremely leftist policies which simply ape the Liberals and the NDP.
But I digress. Note the negative spin put on why Mulroney got involved in promoting a merger. NJC
Is Mulroney going to stand idly by and watch his creation, the new Tory party, founder on the rock of Quebec? Not bloody likely. Mulroney will work hard in Quebec to do the godfatherly thing. Mulroney realizes that his resurrection as a politician is at stake.
Besides, Mulroney needs some new chapters for the memoir he's writing for McClelland & Stewart. Brian Mulroney as godfather of the new Tory party should make for a great ending.
My Commentary:
Note that ending designed to dismiss a former PM as self-serving -- and thereby blacken any endeavour he is involved in. What a cynical ending--and fully intended, I believe!
The whole article demonstrates and is a classic example of the ploys the media use to kill a good idea and a decent man. First you rehash every questionable decision ever made in government by the man -- even though Jean Chretien was elected on a lie, to end the Free Trade deal. JC and crew broke their promises and JC kept the Free Trade deal promoted and implemented by Brian Mulroney's government.
The article is full of negatives about Mr. Mulroney. Then the writer goes on to tie him to Peter McKay and to promoting the merger. Having already blackened Mr. Mulroney in this article, then, the author has set him up a shady character so anything he is involved in must be shady -- and that shady deal is the merger. Ergo, the merger is a shady/ dirty deal. My response? This is a dirty article but it was intended to be.
Readers, watch the left-wing media for this type of reporting -- all the lead-up to the big smear campaign, the next federal election. The writer digs up the dirt (He creates the appearance of something underhanded or not quite right.) or he spews negativity on the normal business of governing by a party the writer does not support (in this case, Brian Mulroney and the PCs). Then the writer ties that person to whatever he wants to blacken or kill. In this case, it is the CA-PC merger and potential leadership candidates (See yesterday, Oct. 23, 03 On Disqualifying Canadians Because They are Not Bilingual and articles on Mike Harris, for example, -- but it works the same way for any policy/ candidate/ leader--in short anything the media representatives want to smear. This is particularly true of CBC political reportage. Watch out for it!
