 "THEY SAY THAT BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO"
Last weekend John McCain was on Saturday Night Live doing a Weekend Update segment on the seemingly endless Democratic primary battle. In the middle of it, the two anchors (who I've never heard of) began arguing. McCain just looks to the side and says "That's right, fight among yourselves" to emphasize the Obama-Clinton split.
That seems to be happening in the Canadian Liberal blogosphere and I think it's the funniest fucking thing in the world. Warren Kinsella and Jason Cherniak are like the Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth of people who are wrong. Both of them get about eleventy billion hits and almost never talk about fucking. That of course gets me very upset and insanely jealous.
Cherniak, who spends most of his free time knitting sweaters for Stephane Dion, is a big fan of a proposed carbon tax that the Liberals are dumb enough to build a campaign around. Jason agrees with Dion more than Dion does, which isn't all that hard, actually.
Warren's days are filled with alienating himself from the federal Liberal Party, watching John Tory throw away a perfectly good election and proclaiming himself an electoral genius as a result. But he wants you to know that he's a punk rock guy. Being a middle-aged former chief of staff to a federal minister and a registered lobbyist is all about raging against machines of all descriptions. When not raging against a machine, Warren Kinsella works to further its interests. John Lydon would be so proud.
Anyhow, Kinsella has been saying for weeks that running on a giant new tax is so blinding stupid that anyone should recognize it immediately. Jason suggests that, as a nuanced policy, a carbon tax is just what Canada needs ... even though he and his leader didn't feel that way just three years ago.
One of my favorite things about this blog is when I write that a given policy is stupid. Inevitably, one of my commenters will deftly compose sixteen paragraphs explaining why I am an idiot and the policy is the most wonderful in the history of civilization. They often use large, impressive words with many syllables to do so.
What that does is reinforce my original point. If you can't explain something in a 30 second ad or in a sound-bite, you're fucked. Election campaigns are about reaching out to voters and voters are exceptionally lazy and ignorant. They resent to actually have to go out and learn something and they inevitably punish the politician who insists that they do.
Besides, a candidate's job in politics is to communicate ideas in a brief, yet memorable way. That's where nonsense like "a shining city on a hill" and a "place called hope" comes from. If you go any further than that, voters head to the refrigerator or resume beating their wives. Knowing that might make me incredibly cynical, but it also makes me right.
You might have every perfect argument in the world for a carbon tax, but if you can't communicate them in 30 seconds, all the public is going to hear is "new tax" and they'll vote accordingly. Jason might not like that, but I'm pretty sure that he doesn't like it when it rains on his birthday either. There are just some things in life that you can't change, regardless of how unpleasant they are.
This morning Mr. Cherniak decided to interrupt his virtual saliva-swapping with Mr. Kinsella to educate his readers about their differences on the carbon tax and Kinsella's possible motives for his heresy. All things being equal, it was a rather respectful post. Much more so than mine would have been.
The problem is that Warren doesn't do respectful. The guy is, after all, a punk. He demands total fealty and god help you if you don't give it.
If you disagree with the philosophical basis for hate speech laws, Warren calls you a nazi even though he hates being called that himself. If you e-mail him outlining your differences with him, he publishes your IP address. And he threatens to sue. A lot.
All Jason did was point out that some of Kinsella's professional associations might be a factor in his political positions. That would hardly be unique and probably not even something that would discredit an ordinary blogger's credibility. There are two problems with Warren's situation.
First, he never mentions a potential conflict. If he came right out and said "Look, I have the petroleum association as a client but a carbon tax is still ruthlessly dumb politics," no one would make an issue out of it. Blogging is blogging, and your job is your job.
Second, Mr. Kinsella has a long history of being allergic to full disclosure until it suits his interests. He wrote an anonymous column about Ottawa politics for Eye, yet bitches endlessly about anonymous bloggers and commenters. He rues that they make money from prostitution advertising, but he made sure that he got his share of it. The same is true of his tenure at the National Post, which only became an organ of the KKK when he stopped working for them. Warren seems to be willing to overlook a lot so long as he's getting paid.
Calling Warren on his almost stellar hypocrisy is an invitation to jihad. Whether you are his friend or foe means nothing to him. Christ, this guy goes to war with his former employers on a regular basis.
The response to Jason Cherniak's entirely fair points was classic Warren.
Yeah, that's respectful. Hey, Jason, now that we are including a few thousand people on the conversation, perhaps you can tell me why - when you were lobbying people at my firm and elsewhere to get me to hire you - you weren't so very preoccupied with client lists. Your outrage is selective, I'd say. Among other things.
Wow, that's awfully personal, isn't it? I don't think that I've ever seen someone who calls himself a political professional and actually wrote a book called "Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics" get all fucking hurt and sad like that before. Jason pointed out something that Warren should have mentioned himself and Kinsella responded like he was Jake LaMotta and didn't like the way Jason cooked his fucking steak.
Look, I disagree with pretty much everything Jason Cherinak has ever said. I question his political judgement almost every day and some days I question his very sanity. But I think that he's a pretty good kid. I don't question his motives at all. Warren, on the other hand, is the kind of guy who would attack Hitler only after the war was safely over, as is evidenced by his stands on prostitution advertising and the free speech stance of the National Post.
I don't think that Jason was at all out of line with what he wrote in his post. The fact that Warren didn't point out his own professional connections before making his political position public is a valid point. One sentence would have negated the entire thing. And the fact that Jason might have sought employment with Warren's ridiculous little company is irrelevent.
Even though I'm pretty sure he won't, Mr. Cherniak should respond to Kinsella's jihad in kind. First, it would show a killer instinct that the Liberals haven't shown in a long time. Second, it's always funny watching lawyers engage in a slapfight.
Breaking up is not only hard to do, it's sad to watch. And like most sad things, I enjoy it immensely.
As Senator McCain said last weekend, "That's right, fight among yourselves."
UPDATE, Saturday 24 May 2008: Welcome Daimnation, Blazing Cat Fur and Jay Currie readers. There sure are a shitload of you, aren't there?
I don't get many readers from my home and native land. I'm much bigger in the United States and, oddly enough, Korea, than I am here in Canada. Canadians almost universally hate me. You will, too. Just look around the blog and you'll find something that gets you really angry. Anyhow, thanks for stopping by. Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: You're Gonna Miss Me By: The 13th Floor Elevators From: The Psychedelic World of the 13th Floor Elevators
PermalinkLabels: Big Ups To Bloggers, O Canada
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