Randy Simms: the wind beneath Danny’s wings

When Danny Williams rails against relentless negativity, he knows of what he speaks.

The guy who built the early part of his career tearing down anything that came before him now finds it a wee bit uncomfortable when someone dares to suggest there could be other things to gain the Premier’s attention besides oil.

The audio from the Premier’s five minute tantrum this morning is rapidly spreading to every available media out there.

People are shaking their heads and many are laughing.

They shouldn’t.

It isn’t funny when a guy who should be proud of his accomplishments instead launches into a childish tirade on international radio.

It wasn’t funny at all considering that Simms is above all else a decent and fair journalist. His comments earlier weren’t out of line and Williams’ tirade is built entirely out of his own invention not anything Simms said.

For those who missed it, here’s the audio along with some stills to give you something to look at.

Meeker Nails it Update:  the whole thing transcribed.

When you’re done, go check out an eerily similar rant from Joe Smallwood aimed at a much younger Randy Simms.

Smallwood rant mp3

 

 

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You couldn’t make this crap update:  Best line uttered in the spittle-fest is the reference to “hard-core” infrastructure.

Apparently government spending is now like pornography.  it comes in hard-core and soft-core versions.

What’s the difference, you ask?

Well, in soft-core the building is simulated by actors and there is no actual construction.

Wonder what that makes the stimulus package where almost half the projects started some time ago and some have been the subject of multiple announcements?

Eerie coincidence 2

An economic stimulus package update and an update on an economic stimulus package.

Both will claim to have worked.

In one case, the update was part of a deal to stay in government.

In the other case, a government that has reluctantly provided any updates on anything, that loathes public access to government information and is stalling whistleblower protection legislation suddenly volunteers an update.

And the government pollster is already done his work for the quarter.

What’s up with that?

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Eerie similarities

Stephen Harper:

A defiant Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended his embattled natural resources minister on Tuesday, dismissing the opposition's call for him to fire Lisa Raitt over controversial comments caught on tape as "cheap politics”.

Someone who is not Stephen Harper:

“This is a significant issue with tremendous impact on many families and women in this province. To try to play politics with it, I guess, speaks to the credibility of the members who are raising it in that fashion. It speaks to the depths they will reach to try to play cheap politics in this province," said
Wiseman.

Someone else who isn’t Stephen Harper:

I am not supporting this motion because it reeks of cheap politics. It is partisan politics of its worst.

Well, it isn’t really a similarity except that politicians who are in a tough spot, who may be trying to defend the indefensible, usually have nothing better to do than accuse someone of playing “cheap” politics with an issue.

If they don’t say that they accuse their political opponents of “political games” or “political opportunism” even though in the course of the scrum cum rant, the politician admitted they’d been sitting on information for the better part of the last year. [Hint: Check the scrum video for the bit about when government knew about the computer search for the word “breast”. Further hint: it wasn’t April 2009]

Condescension is the least effective form of political argument.

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