Thursday, December 13, 2007

Hip Check

Al Gore invoked some able diplomatic stickhandling today, quite crafty in criticizing Canada, without a direct reference. Is there any doubt that the hockey analogy was pointed jab?:
Apparently speaking directly to Canadians, Gore referenced Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Hull, two of Canada's greatest hockey players, during remarks that suggested the world should move forward without the U.S.

"One of the most famous ice-hockey players in history was asked the secret of why he was so good," Gore said. "He was the best passer in the history of the game, Bobby Hull. Others might disagree (and say) Wayne Gretzky.

"And he said in response to the question: 'I don't pass the puck to where they are -- I pass the puck to where they're going to be'."

"Over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now. You must anticipate that."

The last line is most telling, Gore essentially warns Canada that it has aligned itself with a lame duck.

Gore's diplomatic grace wasn't shared by everyone. Baird gave his speech today in Bali, the highlight of which was probably the bizarre "canada is determined to honour our commitments..." Who knew? Others, put conventional discourse aside, with scathing comments for Canada:
"So right after this speech, Bangladesh's representative came out to call Canada's position immoral, dishonest, working against the interests of the planet and working against the interests of individual Canadians," Chao said.

"These are very harsh words from diplomats and officials that usually try to take a diplomatic road."

Baird's speech said he endorsed the conclusions of the IPCC. The IPCC doesn't endorse Baird:
In addition, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body that won the Nobel Peace Prize along with former U.S. president Al Gore, slammed Canada's position.

"The members, on learning that Canada was trying to set targets at 2006 levels, said that Canada was being misleading and trying to undermine the trust of the talks here among nations," Chao said.

How anyone can defend this government is beyond me.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"How anyone can defend this government is beyond me."

And right there lies the problem. No one is defending this government, it's simply that no one is seriously doing anything productive to publicly disown this government. The left-wingers cannot do anything because the 32% Conservative base is simply not going to listen to them, and the Conservatives who disagree with these bullshit policies are simply too whipped to do anything to really have change, because they are excited that there is a slight chance their little pet projects might get put into action over the next few years.

The only party with any real chance to take votes away from the conservatives is not the NDP or the Greens, but the Liberal party, simply because the Liberal party is the only party that is even remotely ideologically close to the Conservatives, and so has the vague possibility of convincing those voters to vote for them.

The NDP simply can only drain more people off of the left wing of the Liberals, and to be honest at this point that simply makes the Conservatives stronger as they are the only real alternative to having a fully socialist left-wing government.

As much as the dippers want to pound their chest and get rid of the Liberals once and for all, they fail to realize that a significant number of those Liberals and absolutely none of the Conservatives would ever vote for the NDP party unless they changed drastically and moved closer to the centre, and even there, with Layton as their visible head there is nothing that can really happen.

The problem right now is not that the Liberals are too centre / centre-right, it's that the Conservatives are in power and the left-wing in this country, be they liberals, socialists, or greens are so bloody divided that they simply cannot see the wolf in their own midst and rather spend all of their time sniping at eachother rather than dealing with the real conservative threat.

Only about 15% of Canadians are seriously defending this government, the other 15-25% don't like them, but are never going to vote for a socialist alternative, and the other 60% are angry, but are so divided over petty squabbling that those 40% are going to end up running the show if no one smartens up.

Anonymous said...

Al Gore - the Hundred Million Dollar Man

A hundred million reasons to bullshit.

Anonymous said...

Wow, anonymous, with those debating skills you'll go far (in the CPC).

Grow a pair, will ya . . . Try a real argument.

Steve V said...

"Try a real argument"

They don't have any :)

anon

"are so bloody divided that they simply cannot see the wolf in their own midst and rather spend all of their time sniping at eachother rather than dealing with the real conservative threat."

Agreed.

Anonymous said...

Joey dear, that is a real argument. You'll understand when you grow up.

Steve V said...

anon

No, it's just mindless nonsense, which is all you people have to offer.