Harper Pwned

Andrew Coyne edition. I am glad someone in the MSM is willing to call out Harper on his intellectual dishonesty. I would never want Andrew Coyne to have his fingers on our economy, but if I ever needed someone watching my back on issues related to democracy, he would be my choice.

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The "Legal Obligations" Smokescreen

The Conservatives have no intention of complying with the Speaker's order. Coyne lays it all out for us here. Parliament has the constitution on its side. If one part of Parliament wants to see documents and they are not categorically excluded from seeing them in legislation they themselves passed (which they are not), then the government has no choice but to comply. This whole "legal obligations" nonsense is nothing more than a framing device for an upcoming election Harper will call if the opposition doesn't bend to his will. The bottom line, Harper is stretching the truth to beyond the breaking point and we would be better off as a country if he was retired and writing papers about flat tax schemes at the Fraser Institute.

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Andrew, Andrew, Andrew

I like Andrew Coyne. He is a nice bloke and he supports electoral reform. But, when he writes things like this I cringe:

The Taliban read the Western press. They are looking for the weak link in the NATO chain, and having found it, they will exploit it -- by killing as many soldiers from that country as they can. If critics of the war should not be accused of supporting the Taliban, neither should critics of the critics be accused of suppressing debate if they point out that there are consequences to their fecklessness. The Prime Minister has invited them to grow up. They should accept.

If being "grown up" means blindly following a counter insurgency strategy that has not worked in five years, is panned by people who know the country and pretending that following such a course is consequence free, then God help us. Being grown up has never felt more like infantalization.

To me, being grown up means learning from one's mistakes and adjusting one's policies to the realities on the ground. The sooner the government and its media allies learn this lesson, the sooner we will all be more grown up.

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