Denis Did His Job

I have to laugh at some of the bloggers hailing Stephane Dion’s shadow cabinet shuffle specifically for moving Denis Coderre out of a portfolio where a critic really was no longer necessary. As defence critic, Denis Coderre helped convince Stephane Dion that his previous position, while the popular one was not the correct one. I don’t know about you guys, but in my eyes, that should be viewed as a success. The Liberals got on the right of an issue even if they knew doing the opposite would get them more votes.

So in his time as defence critic, Denis Coderre managed to forge a consensus for his party to make the ultimately correct decision, and he lasted longer than his counterpart, who had to be hurriedly shuffled out last year.

He moves on to Heritage and Josee Verner, who Denis is once quoted as describing as “a simple-minded person who has no place in cabinet”. In Quebec, Heritage is a higher-profile portfolio than Defence, and I personally can’t wait for Denis, as critic for the CBC, finds out how wonderful Don Cherry is towards French Canadians.

So to Denis Coderre, my friend, I want to offer my congratulations on getting the job done. I wish you the same success with Josee Verner that you had with Gordon O’Connor!

The Blame Game in Quebec is not Over

Forgive my pessimism, but there is a lot of blaming and not a lot of changing going on in the LPC(Q). Both the party officials and the Lieutenant are still at odds and nobody is doing anything to alleviate the situation.

Nobody can stop the Pierre-Luc Belleroses of the world who just want their name in the newspapers and will make up anything to make it happen. (Not to mention overzealous journalists and editors who will print anything.)

The party officials are trying to calm the situation down but what Steve Pinkus did last weekend accomplished exactly what he claimed to be upset about.

As for the Lieutenant, she should probably stop trying to save safe seats for her friends and try and keep whatever small amount of star Quebec candidates the Liberals still have left instead of ignoring people for months. Marc Garneau only got his seat by going to the press. Do Liberals want this to happen with the others as well?

If the party officials keep airing out their differences to the press, nothing will change.

If the lieutenant keeps stonewalling star candidates instead using them to try and gain some traction in Quebec, nothing will change.

Because both sides believe they are right, and have believed it for the past few months, nothing will change and the blame game in Quebec is far from over.

Are White People Even Welcome in Barack Obama’s Church?

The Obamaniacs have their panties in a twist because Hillary Clinton said she would have left the church where Pastor Jeremiah Wright spewed his racist hatred.

Seriously, it does say something about Obama’s character when, as the son of a white woman and having been raised by a white woman, if your own priest tells you AIDS was invented by the white man to kill black people, that he sat there silent and didn’t call out Jeremiah Wright, continuing to sit there and listen to that garbage.

It says something very telling about Barack Obama’s character. Besides, the Obamaniacs should know that if Hillary Clinton didn’t ask the question in March, John McCain would have asked it in August September and October.

Now I don’t go to church because my priest says people like me are going to hell. I know Catholicism is all about guilt tripping but why should I sit there and have somebody hating on me because of the way I was born?

This is seriously what I imagine the KKK’s version of the twilight zone to be, walking into a black church where the preacher is hating on white people.

Would you sit at any church while someone made discriminatory statements against your people? It is a serious question. Ask yourself that. I believe many Americans will be asking themselves the same thing in the very near future…

Gong Show at the Bell Centre

Did anybody notice the shellacking the Montreal Canadiens put on the Ottawa Senators for the first two periods of the hockey game tonight?

At the end of the second period as RDS was interviewing Francis Bouillon, you may have noticed that none other than Jean Charest was sitting behind the Habs’ bench.

I was waiting for them to interview Charest to say something along the lines of “People are always happier when we are beating the crap out of Ottawa.”

Carville Wins Best Snipe Award

From James Carville, who doesn't have the word surrender in his vocabulary...

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

It is noticeable Mr. Richardson did say that the superdelegates should follow what their constituents chose. I will note Hillary Clinton won New Mexico.

I guess superdelegates will have to make their decision based on their best judgement...

“Speech of the Century” Wows Media, Not Voters

Barack Obama’s campaign changing moment and the media’s intellectual masturbation session following the speech seemed to have little traction with voters in many of the nation’s swing states. It seems the voters are not electing a successor to Martin Luther King; they want to elect a President.

Polls taken in November swing states show it is Hillary Clinton who leads Barack Obama in a hypothetical match up with John McCain. This is news because no poll has shown this since Super Tuesday. Pennsylvania is 4 weeks away and the DNC continues to ignore the voices of two pivotal swing states in November. Hillary Clinton may go into the convention trailing Barack Obama in pledged delegates, but if she carries 3 months worth of momentum into the convention, the superdelegates will have no choice really, especially considering Obama’s lead would probably not exist if June primaries are held in Michigan and Florida.

My friend Dan Arnold says Hillary Clinton winning states now is like the Toronto Maple Leafs winning hockey games this late in the season: too little, too late. The only problem with that metaphor is that if the Leafs finish 9th or 10th, and the NHL had superdelegates, who do you think would be playing the Habs in the first round?

Barack Obama Cannot Have it Both Ways

We all knew that in the end, the voting patterns didn’t lie. Many African Americans voted for Barack Obama, sometimes 6 or 7 to 1 compared to Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama took the high road and said his presidential campaign was not about race. After all, if he had made this speech in Iowa, it would not have resonated as well. In the early going, Obama said it was about change and the future, not about race. All of a sudden, with over ¾ of the delegates chosen for Denver, it suddenly becomes about race again.

All of a sudden, Barack Obama says what he knew he could not say in January, that there is a deep racial chasm in this country and that he is the person best placed to handle this problem. If Obama had said this back in January, he would have been pigeon-holed as a candidate with the same goals as Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, there to talk about race.

Bill Clinton got lambasted and accused of playing the race card when he simply suggested black voters are voting for Obama simply because he is black, suggesting positive discrimination. The voting patterns did not lie. Bill Clinton was right. Obama took the high ground and his campaign attacked Clinton, saying this campaign was about more than race.

It was up to Obama, should he make it to November to stay above the fray; because he had said so many times that there were more pressing issues rather than race in this election: health care, the war in Iraq, the economy. He scolded the Clintons for talking about race in South Carolina because he was above all that. His campaign was beyond all that.

So what does visionary Barack come up with when he needs votes in Pennsylvania?

“Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.”

Are you f!@#ing serious? (incoming rage)

If this campaign was not about race, the speech about race was not necessary. Hillary Clinton never made a speech about why it was so great that she was a woman. It isn’t necessary. Talking about race makes it an issue. Race is an issue only if people make it an issue. Making a choice based on race is the same discounting the alternative based on race.

So for Obama to pull out the race card when he needs votes in Philadelphia, is extremely disturbing because up until this point, Obama was making history, a black man running for US President without making the most contentious part of his candidacy, his race, an issue. Barack Obama getting elected without playing the race card would have really made history, and shown that at least half the United States was on the same page as Thomas Jefferson (edited), that all men are created equal. Lincoln’s words had never been really put into practice, and Obama had the opportunity to make them ring true. He had a chance to make real change.

That old man in South Carolina had it right Barack. He came for Ashley. He overcame race to see one of many Americans in peril. Many Americans face the same problem as Ashley. They cannot afford to deal with the color of people’s skin because they need to put food on their tables. That man did not need a speech about race to stand up for Ashley. Why let all the Ashleys down now?

Bob Rae for Foreign Intervention?

Well, it seems we finally have found the real reason why foreign affairs critic Bob Rae wanted the Canadian troops home from Afghanistan. Bob had his sights set on a new bold Canadian mission…in Greenland!

The wonder that is Facebook told me today that Bob Rae joined a group called “Hands Off Hans Island Denmark!...or Canada will Invade Greenland!”

I know Bob runs his own facebook since he replies personally if you Facebook him.

So I am curious as to why Bob Rae decided that after he got elected one of the first things he would find the time to do is join a facebook group advocating the invasion of a NATO ally in Denmark.

Did Bob Rae need another lake to jump in? Why must we invade Greenland to find Bob this other lake? Besides, anybody who watches Disney movies knows that Iceland is green, and Greenland is full of ice…

151 Votes From the Brink

Liberals are trying to spin this morning that all is quiet on the western front, but the reality is that they came within 151 votes of an unprecedented disaster. At least Outremont was close in 2006. Vancouver Quadra was the SAFEST LIBERAL RIDING WEST OF TORONTO. As long as Stephen Harper stays away from killing kittens on live television, I don’t see a federal election in the near future…

Liberals Are Going to Win Quadra

I campaigned in this riding in 2004, it is the safest Liberal riding in BC, safer than Van South. They will win this riding, no matter how pathetically they are performing in Abstainistan. Liberals are lowering expectations because they may lose in Northern Saskatchewan, but making it sound like Quadra is going to be close is kind of ridiculous. If the yuppies in Kitsilano want to protest, they will likely vote green. Can’t wait to see what happens Monday night, but the Liberals need to win three, or it is time to take a walk in the snow…

Can any Liberal Please Explain Instead of Abstain?

Abstainistan is something no Liberal should be proud of. The fact that Stephane Dion surrenders faster than the French Army should be of some concern to even the staunchest Liberals. Liberal faithful need to see their leader stand up for something in the very near future or more people will just tune them out.

I still get Liberal fundraising letters and the one I got last week had a big red “Take Action NOW!” urging the grassroots to help finance a general election. What Liberal in their right mind would spend their hard-earned money to continue to finance the gong show in Abstainistan?

Does anybody remember the three pillars? Some people thought it was really nice to have three pillars. Who knew that within 2 years, Stephane Dion will have failed to stand up for all three pillars?

He failed to stand up for the cuts to social programs when Stephen Harper gutted their budgets in the previous two budgets. He failed to support economic prosperity when he allowed Stephen Harper to squander a 15 billion dollar surplus and remove the federal government’s means to fight a slowing economy by abstaining on the budget. Then on a confidence motion slamming Stephen Harper on his environmental record, Stephane Dion abandoned the most important pillar he had and failed to stand against the Conservatives for their lack of action on climate change.

If you don’t support the pillars, the structure collapses. The leadership of the Liberal Party has failed to stand up for everything they believe in.

Liberal bloggers are presently listing 6 things they are doing to help the Liberal Party. I have a favor to ask some of my former colleagues: can you please tag Stephane Dion and get him to blog about 6 things he is doing to help the Liberal Party? At this rate, Liberals won’t vote for any other party; they will follow the Liberal example and abstain.

The Reason I am an Only Child...

'Wife's nagging left me impotent'

An Italian man is seeking $300, 000 in compensation after claiming his wife left him impotent through her constant nagging.

Sergio Vinucci, from Parma, says he has medical evidence to prove that his wife’s constant complaining left him so stressed that he became impotent.

"All she ever does is complain," he said.

"It is extremely stressful and it has left me unable to be a man. I want some compensation."