02 August 2007

PMO bucklers-up again

Locally there are Hickey-ups, that's a political mistake properly called a a f*%ck-up, named after transportation minister John Hickey.

But since we don't want this blog declared NSFW (not safe for work), we take some inspiration from Abbie Hoffman and use a word you can say on television or in this case, can type without a bunch of squiggles. We don't even have to resort to spoonerisms.

Nope, we can use the local poster child instead.

Seems federally, communications foul-ups will become known as Buckler-ups. It's kinda like a cross between a bugger-up - which would be pathetic but innocuous - and the full-on f*%ck variety.

A buckler-up is the kinda of thing that is patently stupid on the face of it, that is compounded more by the added stupidity of being repeated over and over, and on top of all that suggests a stunning capacity for lampooning yourself without having much of a sense of humour.

Like the latest demonstration of the Stasi-like media tactics of the PMO press officer, Sandra Buckler, for whom the buckler-up is named. During the campaign you had political staffers assaulting reporters for no good reason. There was that long war over who gets to pick the questions at a scrum. Now there's ejecting a bunch of reporters from a hotel lobby so they can't speak to Connie politicians other than the ones hand-picked by the PMO to represent the shiny face of Canada's new open, accountable and transparent government.

In the latest incident, the Queen's Cowboys cleared a hotel lobby of reporters - specifically reporters - apparently on orders from the Prime Minister's Office.

On a slow summer's day, when most things are going along quite well, what better thing to have running across the country than another story about a petty policy of a petty government struggling to make it through the second year they never planned on having to work at.

The whole thing makes Buckler's boss look, well, petty, which is pretty much the opposite of what she gets paid to do.

But thanks, Sandy.

We of other political persuasions can't even begin to tell how much we'd pay to have someone just like you working for the prime minister we want to oust.

And it's not like there aren't smart Conservative politicos out there like Tim Murphy who know better than to send a bunch of guys whose organization - national icon no less - is under more than a small ethical cloud acting in manner that further tarnishes their image.

(h/t to the blog without a name)

-srbp-