You have seen a day's worth of spin and parsing of words and examples of journalistic ethical lapses on the Dion Halifax CTV interview.
Here is an excerpt of the interview that will find it place in journalism schools as a mistake and an example of poor questioning:
Steve Murphy: M. Dion, you’ve said today that Mr. Harper has offered nothing to put Canadians minds at ease during this financial crisis, and you go on to say that he has no vision for the country. You say we have to act now; doing nothing is not an option. So I’d like to begin by asking you: If you were Prime Minister now, what would you have already done in this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn’t done?
Stephane Dion: I can’t, I don’t understand the question. Because are you asking me to explain sir, at which moment, today, or since a week, or 60 weeks or s…
Steve Murphy: No, if you were the Prime Minister during this time already.
Stephane Dion: We need to start again. I’m sorry, I, if I was the Prime Minister starting when? Today? If I was the Prime Minister today?
Dion Aid: If you were the Prime Minister when, since Harper’s been Prime Minister.
Stephane Dion: Ya, two years and a half, ago.
Dion Aid: At any give time.
Soooo this looks to me like a legitimate request for clarification as to the time frame referenced in the question. Dion is asking Murphy if the time frame in is question is what would he do differently from Harper IF Dion had been in power since the last election, or since the election was called in early September, or if Dion should win on Tuesday.
What Dion would do differently would differ in each case. Here is some more transcript that will show you how this is the only reasonable interpretation of Dion's request to have the question clarified.
Dion Aid: What would you have done differently between, between the time that Harper’s been there, to change the country.
Stephane Dion: Ya, but if I had been Prime Minister two years and a half ago, we’d have had an agenda. Let’s start again.
Steve Murphy: OK.
Stephane Dion: We’ll go there.
Technician: I’m rolling. Still recording.
Steve Murphy: M. Dion, thank you for coming.
Stephane Dion: Thank you Steve. Let’s start again, I’m …
[Laughter]
Steve Murphy: It’s a good job that tape is cheap.
Stephane Dion: But give me, give me a first date where I am Prime Minister that I can figure out, but, what your question is about.
Soooo...ignore the demeaning spin and take this exchange for wht it is...a failure to communicate by a professional communicator...nothing more nothing less.
We are seeing some Canadian MSM and the Conservative War Room who trying to turn this into Harper's version of the American media silliness that swirled around "Lipstick on a Pig."
There are serious issues like the economic turmoil, Afghanistan and Climate Change and health care that are not being discussed seriously enough in this election. Harper did not even respect the electorate enough to put our his campaign platform until the very last week of a 6 week campaign.
Lets move on and into the comparison of the characters of the tow front runners. Here is Dion's speech to he Canadian Club and Empire Club luncheon the day after Harper released his "platform brochure" to the exact same audience. Dion drew a much larger crowd and got 6 standing ovations. Harper had a very small audience and got a single and cursory standing "o."
Ken: "Lets move on and into the comparison of the characters of the tow front runners."
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Ken. Why spend time on trying to figure out who the biggest hypocrite is when Dion is caught plagiarizing TWO separate speeches (Suzuki's stolen enviro platform and the UN stolen speech, stolen by the man himself) and the PM's use of one of his writers words from Howard.
Focusing on Dion's inability to communicate in the predominant language of the country is sort of petty.
I prefer the hard issues.
I think that Dion and Layton have peaked with their sky-is-falling embarrassing hysteria, and Dion's plan-to-make-a-plan, a year and some months after Harper already made a plan and executed.
The hard truth: The IMF, the World Economic Forum and the huge jobs figures made all the non-Cons look like idiots - frantically running about screaming that the unemotional Harper had mismanaged Canada into being the best economy in the world.
How ridiculous. How embarrassingly self-evident.
And all the Lib/Bloc/Green/NDP shrieking and hand wringing cannot distract Canadians from the truth too long.
That is why the Cons are coming on again - the big lie only sustains for so long!!!!
I for one want an economist in control in tough economic times. Tax and spend experiments....I don't think so....
That interview had nothing to do with his hearing. He could not answer a simple question.
ReplyDeleteThanks - Dion just lost the election because of his pathetic inability to answer a straightforward question. It was a sad. Period.
Just when he had some momentum, he lost it - losers tend to do just that.
Are you kidding me? Now suddenly it's because Dion has a hearing problem or we should leave his English alone because he's French-Canadian. That sure doesn't stop anyone from attacking Mr. Harper's french in Que. Give me a break. Dion heard and understood the question just fine. Could you just imagine this bumbling idiot sitting at a G8 summit? Talk about ridiculous. "Excuse me, Mr. President could you repeat your question another 30 times? Ooh sorry I thought you were asking about my 30-50 plan on poverty..." Dion didn't have a clue as to what he'd do differently than Mr. Harper because he doesn't think like a leader. Dion thinks like a finger-pointing member of the political peanut gallery along with his pal Jack Layton. Harper is steady, calm, confident and effective. Liberal waste on useless programs? We've seen how that ends up...billion dollar Liberal (and friends) boondoggle after boondoggle...bureaucrats LOVE the Liberals. What about prudently funding those culture programs that work? Hmmm, wait a minute, government funding programs with my taxes that work?...what a novel idea and so unlike the Liberals. Harper is a "leader" who is informed and understands the fact that we have the best banking infrastructure in the world. So rather than walk around like a raving panic-stricken, the sky is falling finger-pointing lunatic, (A.K.A Dion, Layton) Mr. Harper showed and communicated confidence in what he knew was true - Canada is a leader! He also knew this was true because his government made the changes well over a year ago to our own sub-prime mortgage environment and as a result we're not even close to being in the same situation as the US. Mr. Dion and Layton were finger-pointing and crying then too. I just cannot imagine why anyone would be supporting the Liberal tax-machine, talk about turmoil and chaos incarnate. Dion needs to take a page from Mr. Layton's NDP Party play-book and smoke some weed with the Marijuana Party to calm down with some friends and stop taking a page from Sarah Palin's interview 101 manual.
ReplyDeletesome wag on a blog somewhere about Dion not able to answer a simple question about what he would have done differently than Harper in the last couple of years:
ReplyDeleteDion is Mr. Dithers Mini-Me.
Let us just wait until tomorrow night. If Harper obtains a stronger minority, then Ken will have to shut his mouth for awhile - the voters are always right!
ReplyDeleteToday is the day that Canadians can reject Dion and his corrupt power hungry liberal team! Hurray! Hello increased CPC minority!
ReplyDeleteAnon and eric - a Harper minority is a defeat not a victory. Harper will have put Canadians through a $400m exerecise in ego to no avail. He wanted a majority and thought he had one until he blew it in Quebec.
ReplyDeleteThis is Harper's third election and he has failed to deliver.
He needs to move on but that will not happen. The mute minions in the Conservative MP ranks will continue to act like abused children afraid of their strict authoritarian father who will discipline them harshly if they actually find some spine and stand up to Harper's abusive style.
Don't count on me being very quiet regardless of the election outcome.
If there is only a Harper minority, it will be because the opposition parties and the MSM collaborated to deliberately misrepresent facts.
ReplyDeleteTo whit: the Arts funding was reallocated and increased 6%, NOT cut by $40 million as all the groups save the Cons reported.
The Economy IS strong in Canada, and Harper was 100% correct when he talked about a buying opp. considering the TSX 1600 point upside open today. There was nothing really to be panicked about - simply to be concerned about, and Harper had taken steps to ameliorate bank liquidity and economic strength.
Pity that lying on the left was so endemic and necessary to score points. Integrity and truth the first casualty.
Wonder what kind of hand-wringing, sky-is-falling, emotional hamster does the Left want as a PM?
Certainly not the steely, principalled, steady Harper that other leaders around the world respect.