Writing in the National Post, Rex Murphy considers much of the federal government’s current set of problems are either self-inflicted or made worse by their “browbeating style and defensive righteousness”:
I agree with the point Andrew Coyne made in these pages earlier, that the Conservatives (I’m paraphrasing) have situated themselves to fit these types of accusations. Their browbeating style and defensive righteousness to almost every challenge, or serious question, is a hallmark. That attitude offers them little shield when, as on occasion they must be, they are ill-done by. They play tough and hard and close to the boards, and when a story that fits that broad category, like robocalls, is pushed upon them, it seems to fit. In other words, their brittle style has a cost.
The headlines detailing opposition outrage over robocalls is just the latest instalment of the Conservatives losing all control of what might be called their agenda. They blundered Old Age Security. On Internet surveillance, they surely blundered the “with us or the child pornographers” messaging. And now they’ve been hauled off whatever road they might want to be on by a “scandal” from an election nine months ago. Since the House opened, it’s been one mess after another.
Naturally, the opposition parties are at some advantage in all of this, but not quite as much as they might figure. No one is going to look back on the last week, or the last month, and remember big speeches on the big questions — either energy policy, the country’s fiscal health, or foreign affairs. Instead, it’s been the usual rattle of stones in a tin can that passes for Question Period.
I think the CPC reaction is pretty consistent. Each time there is a whiff of a scandal the media pour in, and pour it on. Once it peters out, and it always does, we look back and see that for all of the bluster and accusation there was a tiny bit of fact and a whole lot of fiction. I am thinking about Wafergate and the PEI Airport scandals, for example. The media never turns around and apologizes for pursing things like a pack of braying hounds, they just ignore their mistakes (wafergate and PEI Airport) and move on like they never happened.
If the media was trying to actually report news, one thing they would be doing would be asking the question “Did any other political parties use similar robo-calling in their campaigns?” But if they were to ask the question it would then blur the line on their non stop accusations of the CPC. I mean, if the Liberal or NDP party used similar calling then it could bring into question who the calls were coming from and on what party’s behalf. That would ruin the narrative though, the story now is that the bad CPC was suborning democracy! (Thunders the perpetually outraged Bob Rae and Pat Martin) If they looked deeper they may have to report that they don’t know who is to blame. Also, it doesn’t help that Elections Canada confirmed that they had to move over 120 polling stations before election day. So some of the confusion could actually be the result of NDP, Liberal and CPC calls to their own supporters to try and get the vote out and giving info that may have been wrong. But again, that would ruin the narrative, and so it rarely is mentioned in the story. It is there, and I guess they could point to it and say “Out of those 2347 stories we did mention the Elections Canada polling station moves 4 times.”
Comment by Dwayne — March 3, 2012 @ 15:59