Our psychic readers write

I bet you're wondering: Are talking points issued to folks who write letters to the editor, or people who put comments on blogs? A topical question, given the letter-writing campaign in Helena's office.  But I'm an optimist -- I'll just assume this is a spontaneous coincidence, in response to  a previous post. They come from different IP addresses, so they're not the same person, but they clearly have a psychic connection. Have a look: 

geo writes: 

Susan Susan,in a story like this,does a reporter,only look at misdeeds done one party? Or does a good reporter look for similar misdeeds done by all parties? I'm not a reporter,but my gut feeling is that this goes on beyond a single party. Isn't this what reporters do? Look for the story behind the story? Or is this too much to expect from a reporter?

And then, Michel Boucher writes: 

 Susan,in a story like this,does a reporter,only look at misdeeds done one party? Or does a good reporter look for similar misdeeds done by all parties? Actually, one follows the story. If the issue concerned a liberal staffer, then an effort would be made to elucidate what Liberals have done. In this case, it's conservatives, so that's who's on the hotseat. No sense in casting around without a clue.

Impostor syndrome

 Liberals have dredged up even more sketchy letters written  in support  of Helena Guergis.  Now there's lots of talk about this being the tipping point for the beleaguered minister -- that she's not far away from firing or resignation. 

For what it's worth, I think if the letters do her in, this is probably just a convenient excuse. My suspicion is that it's not a firing offence in Harper's government for staffers to be writing letters on behalf of their bosses. I've been casting around for examples,  and have only been able to find one more so far. Others welcomed... please feel free to email or paste them into the comments section.

* Here's a staffer for Royal Galipeau, for instance, found out for his letter to the editor in a Timmins newspaper.

Note  that on the Conservative website, if you go  to my.campaign.ca, there's a fancy little tool there to help the die-hards write letters to the editor. (I just tried to do it and found out I'm blocked -- too bad, I was going to write to the Star editor, suggesting I get a raise. But I digress.)

My point is that if you're going to go to all the trouble of encouraging partisans to write letters to the editor, providing the tools for it even, and the script,  it shouldn't be a surprise that eager staffers are going to see that as part of the job description of fluffing up the boss. 

PMO comms director: seasonal work

John Williamson, who only came to the job roughly eight  months ago, is joining a long list of former communications chiefs to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Williamson has decided he'd rather be a member of Parliament, and has told the Telegraph Journal that he  will be running for the New Brunswick seat vacated by the retirement of cabinet minister Greg Thompson. 

But what's with the revolving door at Harper's office? This politician goes through communications directors so quickly that the league of ex-chiefs could soon form their own political party.  By my count, it's roughly one every year or so on average, in office and in opposition. 

    

Uncle Sam wants you

Guess they *really* need some help in Afghanistan. While Secretary of State Clinton is here in Canada, asking us to stay a little longer in  Afghanistan, this email also arrived this morning in my inbox. Unfortunately, Canadians need not apply.

Hello:

The U.S. Department of State is seeking to hire highly skilled and motivated United States citizens to serve our nation in Afghanistan.  We are pleased to inform you that we are currently accepting applications for the positions listed below. Please click on the links to view the vacancies and to start the online application process on USAJobs.

• PRT Sr. Rule of Law Advisor (deadline 4/15/2010)
• PRT Rule of Law Advisor (deadline 4/15/2010)
• PRT Public Diplomacy Officer (deadline 4/23/2010)
• PRT Senior Governance Specialist (Afghanistan) (deadline 4/23/2010)
• PRT Governance Specialist (Afghanistan) (deadline 4/23/2010)
• Provincial Reconstruction Team Advisor (ASO)(deadline 5/3/2010)
• Provincial Reconstruction Team Senior Advisor (ASO) (deadline 5/3/2010)

Applicants must be U.S. citizens able to obtain the required security, medical, and ethics clearances. Please go to http://careers.state.gov/ap-jobs/ to learn more about qualifications, compensation and benefits, as well as what to expect in Afghanistan.

We appreciate your interest in a career with the U.S. Department of State.

Harper meets Clinton

Harper meets Clinton

On the heels of what seems to be an "ask" for prolonged Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, the asker and askee had a brief encounter this morning in Ottawa. Here's the pool report we just received from CP reporter Mike Blanchfield:

"Clinton seated to Harper's right. Each in front of respective flags. Harper welcomes Clinton. They recall their Montreal meeting at January Haiti conference.
They discuss Harper's future attendance at meetings in Washington on non proliferation.
Tone is cordial as they exchange greetings. Small talk. They shake hands.
Afghanistan not mentioned."

 

What doesn't change

The morning papers are filled with commentary about the Liberals' "thinkers' conference" last weekend -- all from people who didn't attend the event. The most harsh criticism comes from The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente, who argues that Michael Ignatieff is "cooked" because his party is trying to dream up new social programs and grand, expensive new  national projects. This is more or less the line from some National Post commentators too. 

On Saturday, several of us (those actually in the room) were listening quite closely when Ignatieff made these remarks. 

“I think the really interesting thing that’s coming out of the conference for me  -- and I’m still still trying to formulate it -- is a different vision of government, that is not command and control,” Ignatieff said in an online interview on Saturday afternoon. “We can’t do it from Ottawa. And an activist government doesn’t mean another big, high-ticket federal program. What it means is getting a network of deciders together to face common problems.” 

I'm intrigued about the way a handful of columnists can write that Liberals want a big high-ticket federal program, or a carbon tax, or whatever, in the face of the opposite statement coming from the actual conference.  There may be several ways in which this is interesting, and maybe even a bit disturbing.

• One of my colleagues argued that no one was ever going to understand what Ignatieff was saying about "networked" government and his hopes for a federal government that would "convene" rather than command from the centre. I fear today's papers may prove her correct.
• It's great that technology allows for columnists to report on events that they haven't attended -- I'm assuming all of these commenters followed proceedings on the web or TV.  But it's obviously not a substitute for actually being in the room and listening to the nuance of the discussions and the general tone. There's a problem here, not new to journalism as I've seen it over the past 20 years.  One way of reporting on this meeting was to actually attend, listen, take notes, ask questions of the attendees -- and then write up what happened. Another way is to sit outside and take shots at the event with simplistic pronouncements. We learned back in the constitutional days that the latter kind of reporting/commentary usually prevails. What a dunce I am, actually going to the trouble of travelling to Montreal and sitting through three days of discussions.  I should have stayed home and written about it from afar.
• One Liberal said to me last weekend that the people criticizing the predominance of "old white guys" at the meeting were old white guys themselves.  Similarly, all this stuff about Liberals as tax and spenders comes generally from people who came of age in the 1970s, when the Liberals were  fond of taxing and spending.  The problem is that we haven't seen that kind of Liberalism in more than three decades and that the more recent record -- 1993 to 2005 -- actually flies in the face of that portrayal.  No one who achieved voting age after 1990 -- people who are nearly 40 now, thereabouts -- would have a clue what these folks are talking about, except as ancient history.  At least two of the former prime ministers  who attended the conference are more famous for balancing books than they are for spending, for instance.  
  

All this fear and loathing of Liberals past is sort of like the fretting that a certain (senior)  segment of the population did when the Germanys reunited -- oh no, they're going to start another world war.  The world has moved on. It is possible that political ideas, including those for activist government, have shifted a bit since the 1970s. But that's probably too subtle or difficult to write about in this day and age. Much easier to sweepingly dismiss the whole three days of discussion as a flashback to the past.   

That's enough thinking. Back to QP.

The Conservatives didn't appear to send any official observers to the Liberals' Canada 150 "thinkers" conference in Montreal last weekend. (Well, one Liberal joked that all the PMO observers were sitting in the media section.) However, they were clearly interested in it, if Question Period of today is any indication. Here's a Harper's index, if you like, of how the conference played in the Commons.

Number of Conservatives who mentioned the conference, even as a non-sequitur: 8 

Number of Liberals who mentioned the conference: 3

Number of New Democrats who made reference to it: 1

Nicknames given to Canada150: "spenders conference"  "taxapalooza" "thinking-spending-taxing conference" "tax and spending conference" ...

Repetition is the key to training animals  getting your message across to the public, they say. Expect to hear more of this, then, in days and weeks to come. Or just watch something else on TV. 

A Canadian Politics magazine

This is interesting. Campaigns and Elections, a well-respected magazine for U.S. politicos, has launched a Canadian version of its Politics magazine.  You can find the inaugural issue here and it includes articles  by Warren Kinsella and Robin Sears (not often you see those guys in the same place)  and a piece  on Alberta's Wild Rose movement.

The speech they're all talking about at Canada 150

Here's a link to Robert Fowler's speech to Liberals this morning. Quite a powerful punch; worth watching. If that whets your appetite to hear more from Mr. Fowler, I highly recommend Peter Mansbridge's One-on-One interview of last September  -- the best interview I've seen on TV in a long, long time. 

Blogging at Canada 150

The Liberals' "thinkers' conference" is a real challenge to cover across the various media "platforms" as they call them.... Blogging especially is falling by the wayside, at least for this reporter, because I'm dividing my time between listening for the long-term (stories on the web and in the paper) and sending little short-term snippets to Twitter. 

So, I'd recommend that people interested in following Canada 150 on line go straight to some Twitter pages. I don't think you have to be a member of Twitter to follow either the conference in general or me in particular. Just click those  links and you should find others who are here, or watching, and sending dispatches about what they're seeing and thinking.