Specifically, he mentioned Kathy Goudie and questions about her working to retain nursing credentials and criticism from some blogger about his charity, the Williams Family Foundation.
Right off the bat, let's just say that while there is a dark side to politics few appreciate, Danny Williams' comments really were just more of his usual whiny way. Like his comments about our collective ingratitude despite the fact he has given the best years of his life, working 24/7 (including the frequent trips to Florida) all for the good of the province, you ungrateful bunch of wretches yada yada yada. People who heard the whinging either live or on tape probably just wanted him to suck it up, shut up and get on with the job he volunteered to do.
But if we look a bit more closely, we can see that Goudie's problem came not from keeping her professional credentials but from the Tupolev behaviour in refusing to give a simple answer to a simple question. [For the reference, check out the Akula skipper from Hunt for Red October.]
As for the blogger, it's hard to know what remark Danny was miffed about or even what blog got his attention. Certainly if it was anything written here, here or here, then the Premier just missed the point entirely.
Odds are good, though, that those two examples of Danny bemoaning other people's supposed pettiness were the part of his speech he put the most energy into. It's what really captures his own attention and in that moment of realization we get a clue to what is wrong with his administration.
They focus on mice instead of antelope.
Government is or more specifically politicians are like lions. They are big carnivores. They could eat mice. But mice are tiny and a typical lion would burn up way more energy hunting the little rodents than it would get from the ones it caught.
That's why lions hunt antelope. For the given output of energy, and the ones that get away, the lion can live quite handsomely on the ones it catches.
That's another way of saying that, as with any big organization, a government needs to keep focused on the important stuff.
Take the recent fibre fiasco. Innovation minister Trevor Taylor is quite right to say that no matter what, the political opposition would have focused its attention on the relationship between the Premier and his two former business partners who now run local telecom companies.
We know that Trevor and his colleagues were so profoundly aware of that issue that they rejected the deal not once but twice. We know because Trevor told us. Several times since the deal was announced.
And when Danny got back from his most recent vacation, he told us that the whole issue of the relationships was of such importance that not cabinet but he himself rejected the deal more than once.
This stupendous deal, with all its magnificent financial benefits was rejected repeatedly by Williams and his cabinet because of an appearance that they now say is really unimportant.
Yet another mouse hunt.Let's not even consider the complete silliness of paying so much attention to public opinion poll numbers, as we have discussed on many previous occasions.
In the meantime, consider all the major initiatives that haven't happened. Like say the telecommunications strategy that would have made approval of the fibre deal far simpler than the torturous 18 months it actually took only to end up as a near-perfect political disaster.
Or the energy plan that has been kicking around now through three administrations - Grit and Tory - including this one. Or maybe a whole bunch of other things, from a debt management plan to an infrastructure plan to a real fisheries reform initiative to health care reform and heaven knows what else.
Rather than talking about things, this is an administration that could be doing things.
Instead, this is a government that spends way too much scarce time chasing after mice, instead of antelope.
And then, as with the Premier's speech the other night, bitching about how difficult a job mouse hunting is.
