Political disaster offers some lighter moments

stupid
bitch
asshole
jerk
fuck

By Julie Smyth

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a new, soft, blatant articulation if he delivered his abode to the nation Wednesday night. The blatant articulation was gone if he batten to the columnist afterwards his affair with the Governor General. Nobody is adage for sure, but there are abundant suspicions that he had a able drillmaster allowance with the television delivery. One affair cabal acclaimed it seemed like a apprenticeship job, with an attack at a calm and abstinent supply on air. But it is a articulation that seemed so unusual, so out of place, it has not been repeated.










Stéphane Dion’s televised address to the nation was a disaster on many levels. The tape arrived nearly one hour late, leaving networks scrambling to fill air time after Mr. Harper spoke. The Liberal party was meant to send two tapes - English and French - but sent only one tape. It was an amateur job, recorded in DVD mini-camera format and unsuitable for broadcast. It arrived so late, CTV had switched programming and never aired Mr. Dion’s statement. The Liberal Party was left embarrassed, apologizing and searching for who was behind the screw-ups.

Also, Mr. Dion’s backdrop for his recorded speech: A bookshelf - and in the bottom left corner, political columnist Jeffrey Simpson’s book on the environment. The title: Hot Air. Conservatives joked it was a fitting choice.

The whole tape fiasco, and resulting bad PR, has given Mr. Dion’s critics ammunition to ask: And this man wants to lead the country?

This is the Liberal tape timeline, according to a report on CTV.ca.
* 6:15-6:30 - The Liberals miss their promised deadline to deliver Dion’s statement to the television networks.
* 6:40 - Liberals arrive with a single tape at the press gallery in Ottawa. They were supposed to deliver two tapes: one in French, one in English. They arrived with a single tape in DVD-minicam format, which is not broadcast quality.
* Shortly after 6:40 - The Liberals decide to run back to their offices -- a block away -- because the French portion of the tape needs another edit.
* 7:05 - Liberal staffers are still in their offices as the networks go to
air with the Harper address.
* 7:07 - Harper’s statement finishes and network anchors are forced to kill time as they wait for Dion’s address.
* 7:10 to 7:15 - Liberal staffers arrive back at the press gallery on Wellington Street with a DVD-minicam player that they had taken from their own offices, along with the associated cables. There is still only one tape, not two. A press gallery official tells the Liberals that the gallery is not the feed point and an argument ensues. The Liberals ask why they weren’t told that earlier. The feed point is next door at the CBC building, which is the long-established feed play point for all network pools. The Liberals are informed that they need to be walked into the building by authorized staff.
* 7:20 - English network anchors are still live on television, wondering where the tape is. CTV has still had no communications from the Liberals about Dion’s address.
* Approximately 7:15 - CBC receives the tape and begins dubbing into French and English versions. This takes about 10 minutes.
* 7:28 - CTV decides to go off-air and back to regular scheduled programming at 7:30. CTV has still not seen a feed of the tape.
* 7:28 - CBC incorrectly punches out the finished feed only to their network.
* 7:30 - CTV signs off broadcast at scheduled time.

What did this short session of Parliament achieve? Not much, is the simple answer. An examination by Canwest librarian Kirsten Smith shows all MPs did was vote on a Speaker, debate the Throne Speech, hear the economic debate, discuss and argue over the economic update, then go home. There was no private members’ business. There were no government bills, no emergency debates. A bill introduced on Wednesday on the Arctic has died before ever reaching discussion. It will have to be reintroduced in January. There was not even a recorded vote on the Throne Speech - they passed it by shouting out. Only one committee sat for, at the most, three sessions. This 40th Parliament started on November 18 and lasted 16 days.

A few more observations from the National Post's Matthew Coutts

1. Much ado about a door. While waiting for the inevitable appearance of Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Rideau Hall’s front door, following an extensive meeting with Governor-General Michaelle Jean, round-the-clock news stations such as CBC Newsworld were forced to broadcast inactivity around the entrance, decorated for the holiday though it might be. The door opened and closed several times over a period of nearly 10 minutes before Mr. Harper finally appeared, each time raising the hopes of watchers and reporters alike. As the door goes, so goes the nation.

2. Gilles Duceppe may be a separatist boogeyman who should not be negotiated with under any circumstances, but he remains the most silver-tongued of any
party leader. When asked in a media scrum about Mr. Harper’s request that the three “national” parties talk without the separatist Bloc Quebecois, Mr. Duceppe recalled Mr. Harper’s own words when he responded: “The Bloc is a national party since Quebec is a nation.” Enjoyably, when asked by a reporter if the coalition would support Mr. Harper if his stimulus package dealt with their concerns, he said: “I would say if my grandmother had wheels she would be a tractor.”

3. Stephane Dion on Thursday said only “monumental change” will earn the Conservative government the support of the coalition. In the past fiveyears, the National Post has published only five articles using the phrase “monumental change,” including an obituary for a Russian novelist, an opinion column about Iraq’s flawed federalism and one in 2003, when then Prime Minister Jean Chretien was preparing to ban union and corporate donations for political parties. Liberal party president Stephen LeDrew was quoted saying “monumental change in the way political parties in this country are financed” would need study. The bill was passed, leaving parties dependent on public funding based on the number of votes they receive. Mr. Harper was set to cancel that funding until the formation of the Liberal-NDP coalition.

Photo: Gilles Duceppe (Chris Wattie/Reuters)