Watching the supremely self-satisfied, snickering commentary on CBC tonight should cement the impressions of the media held by those of us who are actually interested in politics in Canada. The CBC continues to curry favour with Stephen Harper, and its panel “At Issue” administered a deliberate hatchet job tonight.
Peter “soft lob to Harper” Mansbridge, the execrable establishment shill Chantal Hébert, contrarian Andrew Coyne and their biddable colleague Bruce Anderson, had a pleasant little wankfest this evening about how allegedly weak every last one of the NDP leadership candidates is.
The fact that the NDP is the Official Opposition is obviously still a shock to these people—the punditocracy as a whole, in fact, remains in stubborn denial, despite the NDP’s first-place tie with the Conservatives in a poll this week. Listening to these folks tonight, it’s hard to avoid the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder after the May 2, 2011 election.
The fact is that Paul Dewar and Tom Mulcair in particular did very well indeed this afternoon—barn-burner presentations from both, and I don’t like Mulcair at all. I was there, and the 4000-plus delegates at the NDP Convention would largely agree with me, but not the media hacks who have their own agenda, displaying it shamefully this evening.
Face it: We’d never get this kind of one-sided CBC “panel” covering a Liberal or Conservative convention. The CBC is doing its very best to sell itself out to a Conservative government that doesn’t give a damn. Pathetic. It won’t get any extra bucks in the March 29 budget, despite what the MotherCorp honchos might be desperately hoping.
In any case, no one, at this point, really seems to care about these bloviating smart-alecks. Those opposed to the CBC think (or at least claim) that the network is a “state broadcaster.” Those who support it, while we hold our noses in a vice-like grip, are finding it increasingly difficult to do so, and will pay little or no attention to this deliberately staged agitprop.
49% of Canadians differ with these hand-picked pundits. Time for Canadians to turn off this feeble excuse for a public broadcaster and continue to think for themselves. The sorry talking heads on CBC just don’t know what is happening here, nearly a year after an election turned their universe upside down. But we do, Mr. Jones. Just shut up and watch.
