30 April 2009

Disquieting similarities

Via labradore, a disquieting trend among certain people leaving comments on various websites over time.

1.  During the Cameron Inquiry when the Premier raised a stink about the way Madam Justice Margaret Cameron was conducting the inquiry:

“another waste of our tax money.”

2.  From 2007, when a question was raised about giving extra cash to the New Democrats even though they’d lost one of their two seats in the legislature:

“Waste of tax dollars.”

3.  On Tory-gate:

“… an investigation will be a complete waste of money!”

The same refrain has been used constantly, like from April 22 and the longer string of comments from the question of the day over at voice of the cabinet minister.

labradore didn’t get ‘em all yet, though.

4.  How about a federal Tory talking point about the Mulroney-Schreiber affair?  Across the country, the faithful deployed their talking points to newspaper letters pages and online comments in droves all with the same refrain:

“waste of money”

5.  Does anyone remember the Tory Talking Point when the whole House of Assembly scandal first broke open and some of us called for a public inquiry into the whole mess?

Well, there was a line that started right at the beginning, namely that Danny Williams was responsible for rooting out the bad stuff.

It was there on Day Two.  That was the day the rest of us found out about it.  Day One was actually the date on which Ed Byrne told the Premier the Auditor General was poking into Byrne’s allowances.

That same theme was also there when they announced the appointment of what became the Green Commission:

In light of recent findings of the Auditor General into the finances of the House of Assembly, Premier Danny Williams today announced that his government will build upon the successful reforms already implemented since forming government.

And that theme continues right down to the latest revelations about public money funnelled illegally and improperly to pay for Tory party operations between 2000 and 2003. Try Trevor Taylor from the debate on a motion to appoint an investigation into the sordid mess. 

Taylor voted against looking into what he described as “filth” but not before he went back to the Tory Talking Point Number One:

none of this would have uncovered and laid bare before the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, had it not been for the election of 2003 when Premier Williams and this government were installed in this place as the government.

But what was Talking Point Number Two, the one used to deal with calls for a public inquiry?

Take a guess.

-srbp-