- Stephen Harper, news flash: Walsh is 'gravely' mistaken

4/29/2010 11:03:00 AM The Globe and Mail

CBC hits back at Tories as latest poll shows 'stasis', Jane Taber, April 29, 2010 8:39 AM
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/cbc-hits-back-at-tories-as-latest-poll-shows-stasis/article1550741/ tab 36, 33

In reality this is another vicious personal attack by the Con's on anyone that dares say anything that they don't like.

The attack by John Walsh, the president of the Con Party, that the CBC network has a decidedly Grit bias is pure emotional rhetoric, without a logical underpinning, designed to incite the core of die-hard Con's, who Graves seems to have pinpointed - "the cranky old men in Alberta".

One good indicator is that the Con's are using it to raise funds. If Graves is mistaken on who the die-hard supporters of the Con's are, or what region of Canada they are located, perhaps, the Con party could release info on contributions of $200 and under - no names necessary, simply say postal codes and amounts.

Also, the polls, and not simply Ekos, strongly indicate that Canada is being run by a small minority of voters who are Con supporters, centred in Alberta who are uncompromising, extremist in their views and well in a word, 'die-hard'.

And, one need only look at the extremist, right wing, religious based policies being foistered on Canadians by Harper to see that the Con's are not representing the majority but a small, extremist, religious based, segment of the population.

It is not hard to believe that a national poster would have a handle on such a well defined group of voters and where they are situated.

On the other hand, that the Con support is centred in Alberta is not news and if Graves is telling Ignatieff something new, then the Liberals have far greater problems that what Grave's 'advise' might address.

Whether they are "cranky" I don't know, but perhaps it's based on their response to telephone polling, especially at dinner time - but then I would be classified as cranky too.



It is clear that Graves was merely offering some very obvious and gratuitous advise. If it were pursuant to a professional relationship then Graves may be in serious breach of client confidentiality, I mean really, telling a national newspaper reporter (and G&M at that) your advise to a client. In that case it is the Liberals that should be 'up-in-arms'.

Surely, John Walsh, the president of the Con Party (which is not the 'tory' party - anyone who thinks Stephen Harper and the Con's are the same old tory party that right from Confederation helped build this great nation of our to what it is today, I stand corrected, what it was prior to Jan.'06, is gravely mistaken - pardon the pun) surely can't be saying that a news media favouring one party over another is a bad thing. If I recall, in the '05 - '06 election the Globe and Mail came out and explicitly stated it was supporting the Con's (or was it '04, there's been so many). I don't recall the Con's initiating an vicious personal attacks on the G&M then.

Also, to suggest that with Harper and the Con's it is "Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy" is simply re-iterating a manifest truism.

I point this out just about every day in my Blog and have made many, many posts to the CBC News website illustrating this point. I am a die hard Liberal who has on numerous occasions offered Ignatieff and the Liberals gratuitous, but well founded and serious, advise. I'm a bit offended that none of the Con's has suggested that the CBC is bias because of it. Perhaps if they paid me . . . CBC, I'm willing to find out, if you are, lets talk.

Also, Graves' 'advise' that the Liberals "should invoke a culture war" is simply wrong. Nobody in their right (morally, as opposed to politically, that is) would subscribe to that, now would they Mr. John Walsh, the president of the Con Party.

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.htm