CBC brass pulled Heather Mallick's September 5 opinion piece from The Mother Corp's website in the wake of a hail of criticism from many callers and e-mailer as well as coverage by such bastions of insightful, reasoned and factual commentary as FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh.
In his statement, CBC publisher John Cruikshank called the piece "intensely partisan."
Intense, maybe.
Partisan?
Debatable.
Sucked?
Much better description that covers everything from its gratuitous smears to its overall poor structure. Acceptable in some quarters of the blog world. Not really Cebb fare.
You can still read it, though, at Mallick's website. Parts of the piece are interesting counterpoint to Mallick's tonguelashing of some of her fellow female columnists' treatment of Julie Couillard's chestal assets.
The Palin column should never have made it to the corporation's Internet space in the first place. That's a comment on its content and style; not anything on it's qualities, such as the claim by CBC that it is classic political invective - it wouldn't even make the short list on a CBC Great Political Invective series in which second and third rate invective is voted on by ordinary Canadians with nothing better to do with their time than (a) watch the show and (b) make phone calls to support their chosen turd.
Your humble e-scribbler would commend Adam Radwanski's post on it for those interested in the little controversy.
Incidentally, Mallick also writes for the Guardian. Her September 5 piece for that organ contains a few comments that deserve fact-checking - but on the whole it a more reasoned and insightful critique of Palin.
I never claimed a higher moral standing for coming from a great big empty on the map. Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home.
Canada has lots of hockey moms. They're called Fran and Nancy. They have cruel haircuts and their voices shake the rafters of the rink as their rink-rats play. How can I translate the hearty, jollying-along Palin for British audiences? She's a working class Joan Hunter Dunn. It's those volleyball shoulders and field-hockey thighs, the energy, the bullying, and the utter self-confidence in every lie she tells.
Salt-of-the-earthers don't lie! But Palins do. I watched Palin last night, my mouth open, my eyeballs drying out, my hand making shaky notes. I read them aghast.
Did she really joke, "You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick."?
Yes, she did, Heather, and in the piggy lipstick kerfuffle south of the border, Americans seemed to miss that rather nasty slur at a female sub-group of which Palin obviously isn't a member. Being a hockey mom isn't a common enough thing among Americans for them to have noticed the Palin slur. In Canada, she'd have been dragged behind the Zamboni for a few laps, then tied to the uprights so people could take turns pitching empty Timmies cups and stale Timbits at her from centre ice.
None of that matters.
What matters right now is that the mood at the arrogantly-styled Canadian Broadcasting Centre must be dark.
Bill O'Reilly took offense and the Ceeb caved.
-srbp-