For those who missed them, here are the top 10 individual posts at Bond Papers for the past five days:
- The World the Old Man Lives In (with larger picture)
- Reach for the Screech
- Tail-gunner Bob: equality is not a “realistic philosophy”
- Protocols of the Elders of Laurentia
- Cartoon U (might not be what you think it’s about, mainlanders)
- Buchans Saga Deepens: Johnson claims credit for Abitibi Work
- All we want is fairity
- The Old Man defines The Solution
- Tie: Resting on his laurels and hardys and Lower Churchill: Imaginary Project. Imaginary news Stories.
Some of these were one day wonders. Kevin O’Brien’s masterpiece of political hara kiri took the idea of “fairity” to number one with a guffaw but that was just on the day it appeared.
Ditto Charlene Johnson and her nonsense about Buchans.
The Lower Churchill post – tied for number nine – is one that is still drawing hits a week or so after it first appeared.
This week, the Premier and his wing man managed to score a series of multi-day hits. The Premier’s contemptible effort to scapegoat the people of an entire province and his despicable use of language in the process scored multiple hits over multiple days.
By far and away the biggest was the chart in “The World the Old Man Lives In”. Sometimes things just line up right: there was no way of knowing that was the day he would chose for his appalling display. But it fit and it resonated with readers like very little else ever has.
Here’s the way your humble e-scribbler put it in a comment on one of the posts:
When political leaders attempt to smear entire groups of people based on their ethnicity or language, to use them as scapegoats then we are headed for a very dangerous place.
We have already seen too much of this sort of extremist language - "traitor" and "quisling" for example - over the past few years. Over the past couple of days the language has sunk to a whole new level particular in the extent of the scapegoating, the mocking use of French, and the claims about some gigantic ethnic conspiracy against people who live in this province.
Something say that people weren’t reading those posts because they agree with the Premier’s views.
Not to be outdone, the Premier’s parliamentary secretary went on a commie hunt during his speech on the budget. Not to be limited, though, he also took the chance to let us all know that while equality is a nice idea, it just isn’t “realistic” in the society in which we live.
It’s a good thing that after seven years, Ridgeley finally gave us some insight into his own political philosophy. It would be interesting to see him knocking doors in the next general election defending that idea, but your humble e-scribbler is going out on a limb here to predict that Tail-gunner Bob won’t be running again.
You have to wonder, though, if these two in their views – the Premier and his wingman – really do represent the views of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, as the Premier once claimed?
-srbp-
