Trendiest rant ever

I feel somehow cooler today. Sitting here in my apartment, curled up in my new chair, typing away on my new iBook. All I need is a freakin’ latte and an iPod and I’d be set.
If those high school bullies could see me now.

Defence policy update, sort of
Well, to Mr. Phronetic, who posted a comment yesterday regarding my foreign policy rant, you were right – kind of. The Globe ran a really well-written analysis of the new defence policy by Jeff Sallot. The cynic in me has a feeling it was ready for yesterday’s paper and got bumped by the pope, but since it’s my weekend, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they took an extra day to give the statement a thorough going over.
I was surprised, however, by the general lack of followup commentary. I expected the usual suspects to have their opinion pieces in today. . . David Rudd, Barry Cooper and the like. Instead, only retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie commented today, along with a few columnists and editorials. Mac was actually fairly complementary, which caught me off guard.
We’ll see what comes out tomorrow (though you’ll have to read for yourselves, I’ll be sleeping tonight’s party off), but I have to say that the Globe may have saved itself today, but the CanWest crew certainly didn’t.

Tell us what we want to hear, the headline’s already written
Most papers ran something on Dalton McGuinty’s drive to have Ottawa give Ontario more money. They were all headed with something to the effect of “McGuinty vows to make funding an election issue” (that was the Globe’s choice) and the reportage followed the same tone.
Thing is, a gaggle of reporters basically brow beat that out of him.
CBC radio played the scrum yesterday, it went basically like this.
McGuinty: I don’t think Martin is listening, I’m mad about that.
Reporters: Will you make it an election issue?
McGuinty: Well, I just think Ontarians have made it clear what they want.
Reporters: Will you make it an election issue?
McGuinty: The funding gap is important, we’ll deal with it any way we can.
Reporters: Will you make it an election issue?
McGuinty: “We will continue to campaign, either during a federal election before a federal election or after a federal election on behalf of the people of Ontario when it comes to the $23-billion gap”
That last one is the actual quote that was reported. And the headline prophets rejoiced.
This is Julie Van Dusen reportage at its best. Verbally batter politicians until you get what you want. Sure, McGuinty’s comments were newsworthy, but he didn’t vow to make it an election issue. Oddly enough, it was CanWest that played this the most straight, burying the comments in a broader piece on the political climate in Ontario. The SunMedia papers, Star and Globe were the worst offenders here.

The Post played something straight, you say?
Yea, but don’t get too excited. Look at their A1 today first. They focus on Martin’s Survivor preshow tonight by putting a nice big colourful box running down what he might do: Call an election, give a partisan speech, prorogue parliament (so far, so good) or declare war.
What?
Yea, there it is. They give the pros and cons (from the Liberal perspective) of each option and note that declaring war could help save his government (a la Bush), but pointed out that Canada doesn’t have a natural enemy right now and might have to make up a war like in Wag the Dog.
What the hell is this about? I can imagine the converstaion
Editor: I want three options, election, speech or proroguery
Graphics Guy: Uh sorry boss, this is a four-panel graphic. . .
Editor: Shit, it does look nice like that, doesn’t it? Hell, let’s make up something utterly implausable and irresponsible, it’ll be funny.
Much of the illustration is borderline editorial, but that last panel is something out of The Onion. Who does that serve? How is that keeping Canadians informed?
When the Sun pulls shit like this, I tend to shake my head and move on. They are a tabloid, after all. But CanWest likes to pretend they’re above this kind of thing.
I guess not.

And did anyone hear what Condi Rice had to say in Russia? She’s concerned about Putin violating the Rule of Law and she wants more independent media there.
This from the administration that demands pre-screened questions at press conferences, issues video news releases for television broadcasts and pays pundits to spin for them. And let’s not talk about their rule of law violations.
Any “reporters” call her on this shit? Didn’t think so. Maybe it’s because all the questions were pre-screened.