Black mail

THIS POST HAS BEEN CORRECTED & UPDATED:

So, as predicted here months ago, Conrad Black is now firmly ensconced on the National Post's commentary page, earning pin money as a pundit. His most recent epistle (sub. req'd.) is a two-pronged attack, on the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as well as the Globe and Mail's Jan Wong. As Black concludes:

A week ago, Jan Wong in The Globe and Mail observed the first anniversary of the removal of some boxes from the building where I then worked. There was nothing criminal about this, as will be demonstrated judicially in due course. Jan Wong's story contained a number of outright falsehoods. The last time she focused on me, she claimed to have thrown a wallet over the fence in front of my house and complained that it had not been returned. (It wasn't found). I'm grateful to readers for their informative e-mail correspondence. Could one of them tell me why Jan Wong, an ex-Maoist Red Guard whom I have never met, is flapping around me like a deranged Peking duck?

Today, a letter in the Post sang the praises of Black's contribution. Self-righteous Pontificator, a regular contributor to your humble bloggerista's efforts, tipped me to it, asking if the Post's letter page editor hadn't been hoaxed.

Here's the letter. You decide if it's for real or a put-on.

Re: Seeing Trudeau Through Open Eyes, Conrad Black, May 27.

How delightful to read Conrad Black's column on Pierre Trudeau, in which the spirit of Edward Gibbon may surely be detected. It was refreshing to read Mr. Black's honest allusion to his own youthful peccadilloes, when he demonstrated a healthy disrespect for convention in "flogging" exam papers, though the details of this adventure bear no relevance to a discussion of Trudeau himself.

That Trudeau was himself a crypto-fascist was indisputably demonstrated by his invoking the War Measures Act, whereby hundreds of Quebec intellectuals, fervent nationals all, were rounded up and sequestered as vile conspirators against Confederation. Not one, to my knowledge, was ever convicted of possessing weapons of provincial destruction or even of aiding and approving of the kidnapping of James Cross and the murder of Pierre Laporte.

Let us celebrate that Conrad Black is contributing regularly to the National Post. We should thank him for its founding every time we sit back and read our own copy each morning, chuckling at his image of Jan Wong "flapping around like a deranged Peking duck."

Peter F. Jensen, La Salle, Que.

If it is a hoax, it wouldn't be the first time the Post got nailed. There's no way the paper's irony-impaired and conservative butt-kissing editorial board would have caught the tongue in the cheek of this letter wrtiter.

UPPITY DATE: Post letters editor Peter Paul Russell assures us in the comments below that the letter is genuine.

As letters editor at the Post, I can assure you that this letter is legit. So I guess you'll have to find a new line of attack against the Post, and those who toil there.

I always welcome corrections, and even castigations.

But frankly, I like Diana Marie's comment better.

Hmmm, I dunno, all that talk about Gibbon (he of the fall of another empire) and of Trudeau as a fascist, not to mention the, well, rather sycophantic tone .... maybe Mr Black wrote the letter himself.

Anyway, as I told another Postie who wrote super secretly in confidence to complain that I was always picking on the paper, "Lighten up! I was kidding! Joke!"

But sayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Peter Paul Russell, while you're stopping by, maybe you can tell us how many letters -- pro and con -- the paper didn't publish on that Iranian badges story?

Comments

[sheena]

Oh, remind me one time to tell you guys about my "conference call chill" when Monsieur Black ended up sitting beside me in the RCC at DCA last fall.

[Diana-Marie]

Hmmm, I dunno, all that talk about Gibbon (he of the fall of another empire) and of Trudeau as a fascist, not to mention the, well, rather sycophantic tone .... maybe Mr Black wrote the letter himself.

[Antonia Z.]

Diana Marie, usually Sooey is the first with the funnies. But tonight, you win the prize!

[Maz]

Linda Cullen and Bob Robertson did a comedic sketch on CBC Radio back in the day when Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel were riding high. Culllen and Robertson played "Babs" and "Connie" as wildly self-indulgent, bursting with self-importance. Is it possible life is
now imitating middle-brow comedy? That while neither of the two is all that important or matters much anymore they're being given
a platform in order to carry on as if they still were. The way divas,
like Lana Turner, end up doing Noel Coward's Blithe Sprit, for the dinner-theatre crowd.

[RossK]

Strange thing is, seemed to me that Ms. Wong actually pillow-tossed the box removal issue.

.

[Todd]

Isn't that blowhard a fan of Napolean and Duplessis?

(So long as he's taking pot-shots with a view to character assassination, no reason we can't _all_ have some fun doing it.)

How the mighty have fallen.

Or as his lordship might say: sic transit gloria mundae.

A while back, Globe columnist Barbara Wente wrote of her surprise at finding herself at the same party as Conrad and Barbara.

And there's an even better example of how low the Blacks have sunk. They attended Donald Trump's wedding, where they were seated with Regis and Kelly. And Kelly didn't know how the Blacks were. Regis mentioned this on the show. And Kelly STILL didn't know who they were.

Once they hobnobbed with royalty. But today they are the butt of jokes on morning TV for the amusement of viewers in trailer parks.

Who says there is no God?

[Paul Russell]

Antonia:
As letters editor at the Post, I can assure you that this letter is legit. So I guess you'll have to find a new line of attack against the Post, and those who toil there.

[sooey]

here's mark steyn with a funny, diana-marie and ms zerb. it's from HIS trudeau review (cleverly disguised as a book review - NOT!) in macleans:

"Too true. He left us with the bill, in every sense."

and yes. he's talking about trudeau - as a guy who lives in new hampshire. NOT about black - as a guy who owns shares in hollinger...

but remember when chretien and black were duking it out for biggest... well... whatever... gosh. how times flies. but i guess the nat post has gone full circle, eh? complete with conrad black on its op/ed pages to remind us that he AND the aspers have won afterall with the election of a prime minister who supports the war on terror AND an end to public broadcasting. by gum, if my hunch is right - we can probably toss universal healthcare on the socialist heap as well.

[Antonia Z.]

To Anonymous at 6 a.m.: Surely you mean Margaret Wente, not Barbara Wente. Although anybody who posts comments at 6 a.m. is short of sleep so I forgive you.

[Jiminy C]

S'funny that Conny's sycophantic friend would characterize Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act as demonstrating "That Trudeau was himself a crypto-fascist was indisputably demonstrated by his invoking the War Measures Act, whereby hundreds of Quebec intellectuals, fervent nationals all, were rounded up and sequestered as vile conspirators against Confederation."

I think even Conny might support a much more credible theory - that in fact, as Jean-Francois Lisee puts it in his book In the Eye of the Eagle, "Pierre Trudeau knowingly exaggerated the FLQ threat, not merely to justify war measures but also to strike a fatal blow to the entire independence movement. Clearly, according to this theory, Trudeau's real target - behind the Rose brothers, Lanctot and the rest - was Rene Levesque."

Sounds much more like the kind of intellectual and strategic thinker that Conny would love!

Of course the letter is genuine, in the sense that the author exists and those are his words. The unaswered question is whether he wrote it tongue-in-cheek.

[sooey]

or tongue-ON-cheek...

[sooey]

the jan wong dig could be telling... but who could dislike jan wong...

[Ti-Guy]

"Once they hobnobbed with royalty. But today they are the butt of jokes on morning TV for the amusement of viewers in trailer parks."

Ok, this wins. I will be using this as the standard against which all the scintillating intrigue and high drama that is the "Tubby and Babs Show" will be assessed.

[Mark Bourrie]

Yea! That Trudeau! Whadda guy... busting all those CEGEP teachers, union pamphleteers and other separatist scum and jailing them without benefit of trial or any of the rest of that Magna Carta crap. Stuck a hatpin through the heart of the separatists. Yup. Sure did. The man was nothing if not subtle.
I wonder what became of Rene Levesque?

[arthurdecco]

"Although anybody who posts comments at 6 a.m. is short of sleep so I forgive you." Posted by: Antonia Z.

LOL! I regularly post as early as 6am, Antonia. You must forgive me a lot.

Mark Bourrie, great post. (& I love Pierre Trudeau - in spite of, maybe even because of, his capital 'W' Warts.)

[kingharvest]

I am fed up to my vinyl hiphuggers with the pontificating scallywags who demean Connie's vestal sense of decorum with their mindless blather about some far-reaching prognoses, the only purpose of which seems to be to undermine his proclaimed obstruction of erroneous blather. Per chance to render impotent the sanctimonious warmongers who engender such lapses of pontification.

And do not further sully his good name until the morrow, my good friends, when Babs has the bacon as crisp as a virgin four dollar bill and the eggs are on the sunny side of up.

[Elvid]

Well, considering Gibbon's latter dislike of Christianity, and particularly, Catholicism, a bit of a slap at Conrad.
War Measure Act is well remembered in Quebec and probably contributed as much as anything to Levesque's victory six years later.
Though Gibbon's words about the fall of Rome at the end of his history probably say a lot of about North America in 2006..

... "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion,"

[Jiminy C]

Sorry Mr. Bourrie - I'll remember to add a quote from "Hemp" next time!

[Bill-Muskoka]

kingharvest,

That sounded a lot like a Rex Murphy dissertation! LMAO!

[kingharvest]

Jiminy C wrote:
That sounded a lot like a Rex Murphy dissertation! LMAO!

Thanks (I think!) but it was supposed to be a take-off of a typical Conrad Black wordfest.

But come to think of it, maybe Rex and Connie are brothers by different fathers?

[Jiminy C]

Thanks Kingharvest (I think!) but your attribution is a little out of step.
Thanks should go to Bill of Muskoka!

[sooey]

enh. some men can bitch all they like about trudeau. for a closet jesuit, he turned out to be an okay feminist. unlike all these rightwing converts to catholism (come on down conrad black - and his "bitches" i.e. warren, whyte, steyn) who would have the country legislated to accommodate their personal views...

[Jiminy C]

Heck Sooey - for once I actually agreed with you!
Duh!