I wonder if the infamous Dion interview had anything to do with this appointment?
In any event, here is yet another example of Harper talking one way and acting another.
It seems that there isn't a whole lot special about the new Conservative Party -- they do what needs to be done and damn the policy. I can't see Preston Manning doing something like this.
Don Martin: Harper appointments confirm Senate role as payola heaven
National Post Dec 22, 2008
There's always professional squeamishness when journalists are granted a juicy patronage plum from the government they are paid to objectively cover.
Mike Duffy has been a CBC or CTV icon since most of today's national press gallery members were in diapers. He's entertaining, informative, plugged-in and, as that incessant rotation of ego-stroking MP testimonials on CTVs' Newsnet suggests, genuinely liked or begrudgingly respected by all political parties.
But at the stroke of noon on Monday, he went from being last week's host of Mike Duffy Live to being next month's Mike Duffy Sedate as one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's lapdog Conservative senators.
Whether real or imaginary, journalist appointments by government are viewed as the reward for obedient conduct, a perception further tainted by having Mr. Duffy's appointment lumped in with a trough-full of patronage payoffs for Conservative fundraisers, defeated candidates and party toadies.
Full story here: http://www.nationalpost.com/m/blog.html?e=fullcomment/archive/2008/12/22/don-martin-harper-appointments-confirm-senate-role-as-payola-heaven.aspx
2 comments:
Still not getting any of your own party to make any donations to the LPC?
I'm a political junkie, I love to keep up with all of what's going on. Yet, for some bizarre reason I'm continually shocked by the level of discourse. What does donations have to do with the topic at hand.
I'm personally very disappointed when I see someone shifting from covering politics to such an overt partisan position. It suddenly puts all of Mike Duffy's work under a different hue.
Be that as it may, it doesn't look good, and casts an air of lack of credibility in his championing any of his views.
I agree with the points made in the Don Martin piece, and this is someone who writes for The National Post.
In general this is how senate seats are filled. However when Harper has spent his political career railing on the very types of appointments he just made simply adds another chip off any sense of trust I have of him.
The timing also smacks of being desperate. I cannot see a coalition of this configuration coming in to take over. I would be political suicide giving Harper a very health majority upon the next election.
However, with this lack of trust, how can I trust our Minister of Finance after presenting a budget that even Question Period labelled it "having nothing to do with reality" will not give us any structural deficits?
I just take what they say, and believe the opposite.
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