Jeepers, this guy's even more thin-skinned than Ralph Klein is. Apparently the press that work out of Parliament Hill are refusing to play along with his office's latest attempt to micromanage the message coming out:
Since becoming prime minister in January, Harper has had a testy relationship with the national media in Ottawa. His staff has tried to manage news conferences by saying they will decide which reporters get to ask questions.
The press gallery has refused to play by those rules. "We can't accept that the Prime Minister's Office would decide who gets to ask questions," Yves Malo, a TVA reporter and president of the press gallery, told CP on Tuesday. "Does that mean that when there's a crisis they'll only call upon journalists they expect softball questions from?"
What is it with Conservatives - especially the HarperCrit and his lot? Do they think that because they are in government that they don't have to answer questions? Do they honestly believe that Canadians gave them carte blanche to play dictator?
Like Ralph Klein and the George Bush Rethuglikans in the United States, tight control over the media is necessary for these twits - not just because they are thin skinned, but otherwise it's damnably easy to get caught out in lies.
Canadians should be absolutely outraged with Stephen Harper's government right now. Not only is a free press a vital part of democracy, but that press is the primary point of access to government affairs. So far, in his totalitarian zeal to "control the message", Harper has muzzled his ministers, cut the press gallery off from cabinet, and now is isolating himself from the press on the hill.
How, pray tell, is this "open, honest and transparent" governance? It looks more like an iron curtain descending around Parliament Hill and Harper's limousine.
[Update 15:20 25/05/06] Over at CBC, we have people's opinions emerging - and unsurprisingly, they aren't exactly flattering where Mr. HarperCrit is concerned. (There are a few supporting Harper, but by far the majority seem to be saying what I've said all along)
[End Update]
4 comments:
Perhaps they would like the opportunity to, ahem, "proof read" the news stories before they are published to ensure that the, ahem, "facts" are correct...
Fark had the best headline for this:
"Canadian prime minister refuses to give any more national press conferences; stamps foot, insists reporters are doo-doo heads"
Quixote
The One-Eyed Harper:
There is an old proverb which is very profound:
In the land of the Blind,
the one-eyed is king.
We hear from many sources that Prime Minister Harper is a brilliant, strategic thinker; a policy-wonk par excellence ... I wonder if this is true? Let's examine it a bit.
Compared to the rightwingers who ran the Reform and Alliance parties (who wished to rush out and immediately start lopping off the heads of some of their enemies), I can see why Harper would appear to be a startlingly brighter and more strategic thinker.
So when Harper told these folks: Look, let's not rush out straight away. Let's rather gain power, then we can line up ALL our enemies (starting with the liberals and the Liberals), and lop off ALL their heads and then bury that party and make Canada save for a thousand years for morally-right conservatives. Let's cut a deal with some guy whose name begins with an M and take over the prog party, and rename it. Then let's hide our fringe candidates in their kitchens, muzzle our people, talk about a handful of "safe" subjects, keep our major policies under wraps, and aim for winning power first. Then we can change the country, doing most of the stuff out of sight and out of Parliament. Heck, we can even marginalize the press in the Parliamentary Gallery – we just won't talk to them. And, by the way, here are a few speeches I made and a few papers I wrote about conservative ideology, Canadian politics, and the shades of green cheese in the moon. Just to establish my wonkish credentials...
Good message. Well received.
But consider this: go through his speeches. Apart from reproducing rightwing neocon views found south of the 49th parallel, just where exactly are the brilliant insights, strategies and ideas?
Maybe he is in the land of the blind, and maybe he is just a one-eyed average policy wonk who is an obvious choice for king ... in the land of the blind.
If you look at Harper's past and present through this prism, a lot of his actions (Cabinet appointments, roughshod dealings with Parliament, fracas with the press) are explicable: the blunderings of a one-eyed man.
The comments by the CBC readers are telling. Most are appalled and those that are in support of the PM show the small mindedness that Conservatives are famous for. If Harper keeps this up (and Klein keeps opening his mouth) the Tories may just well find themselves in the opposition benches in Ottawa again after the next election.
JN
www.evilscientist.ca
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