Anyone pondering the lack of electoral success for the federal Conservative Party need think no more.
This little post on a blog site favoured by Connies couldn't have said it better: Connies just don't get it. Canadians have opinions but they are tolerant of other opinions and lifestyles.
No matter how cutely this guy starts his piece, there's no question he is a homophobe.
Even if his speculation is true, the majority of Canadians are likely to read the post and ask:
so what?
[Via Bourque]
[Update - apparently local blogger Liam O'Brien found this post a bit too much to swallow so early in the morning. He posted a lengthy critique accusing your humble e-scribe of "McCarthy" tactics.
First, Liam claims the Western Standard post was actually about misuse of public funds. Ok. That's why I posted a link to the original article so people can go make up their minds for themselves.
Second, he tries to blow the whole thing off as a piece of parliament hill gossip. Well, if it was gossip - trivial information - then why did the WS print it? Gossip usually doesn't make news.
Third, the WS doesn't make Connie policy - no one said it did. Liam sets up a straw man and then sets him alight. Massive accomplishment there, Liam.
Fourth, the WS IS very popular among Connie party supporters. Note the links at the bottom of the piece from bloggers who have mentioned it. One of them, small dead animals, is one of the most widely read Connie blogs in the country.
Fifth, if it was about abuse of public funds, I just wondered why the lede - the opening bit - focused on Pierre Pettigrew's sexual orientation. Might the man be gay? Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Sixth, if the issue in some fashion revolves around a possible close personal relationship between a cabinet minister and a member of his staff - with the attendant notions of an abuse of taxpayer funds - can anyone point to the Connie bloggers who called into question an open, close - but heterosexual - relationship between two Connie members of parliament?
Did Belinda and Peter not possibly once tryst at taxpayers expense? Did young Peter, later politically cuckholded by Paul Martin, not once pledge his unending devotion to the former Connie star while collecting a federal paycheque? Did Petie not once endure the little death in praise of Belinda's ample...umm...assets...and later bill the minibar charges to the Crown?
Oh shock! Oh horror! [put hand to forehead and swoon with appropriate dramatic flair]
But they were heterosexuals.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
Is it possible that other members of parliament - of all parties - have kept their mistresses on the public payroll to facilitate their illicit affairs? In those instances, the members of parliament were married and having illicit - albeit heterosexual - relationships with women other than their wives or husbands. Are the Connies ruthlessly attacking this phenomenon or is the Western Standard turning its journalistic cannons on those people? I think not.
For some perspective, maybe Liam and his pals need to check into the matter of one Gerda Munsinger. Liam probably knows all about the woman who was both a Soviet agent and the bed partner of several members of the Diefenbaker cabinet.
Liam might know since The Chief is Liam's pick for Greatest Canadian Prime Minister Ever.
But hey, read my post and read Liam's. Read the original WS post and you decide if the WS post is actually the McCarthyite political attack.
It's an old - and unsuccessful - style of political attack, Liam to accuse others constantly of what you and your friends practice as a matter of course.