Posted on 05/28/2006 8:07:32 AM PDT by Heartofsong83
The PM is copying George Bush's tactics with his allegation of `liberal media bias,' says Linda McQuaig
May 28, 2006. 01:00 AM LINDA MCQUAIG
Despite being the longest-serving member of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas almost never gets to ask George Bush a question.
That's because Bush controls who asks the questions and he doesn't like the kind of tough, doubting questions that she asks. Given a rare chance recently, she pointedly asked him: If the Iraq war wasn't about oil, what was it about?
If Bush hadn't had such tight control over the media, his plan to invade Iraq might have come under the kind of public scrutiny it so badly needed.
Canadian prime ministers have traditionally been more accessible to the media, which has obliged them to submit to a basic level of public scrutiny. Stephen Harper wants to change this. Like Bush, he wants to select who gets to ask the questions.
Reporters who want airtime and prominence will quickly learn not to be like Thomas. They'll learn just to type down the Prime Minister's words.
Harper insists the Ottawa press gallery is biased against him. He's trying to use the allegation of "liberal media bias" just as Republicans use it to intimidate the U.S. media.
In reality, virtually all major Canadian media outlets are large corporations that view much of Harper's agenda favourably. The media co-operated with Harper's election strategy of presenting himself as a moderate, allowing him to shed his image as an ideologue who once headed the ultra-right National Citizens Coalition. The Globe and Mail helped him out right before the election with a banner front-page headline: "Harper says he's evolved."
Harper now accuses Ottawa reporters of taking on the role of opposition. In fact, they have simply been asking questions, including questions the Prime Minister might prefer not to answer.
This is essential. Although elected with a weak minority, Harper is taking the country in some radical directions. Who will hold him to account? The Liberals are leaderless and the NDP seem more focused on stealing ground from the Liberals than challenging Harper.
What this country needs is a whole press gallery full of doubting Helen Thomases.
Harper's unwillingness to submit to freewheeling media questions suggests an anti-democratic tendency.
His political views have been heavily influenced by Leo Strauss, a political philosopher at the University of Chicago who spawned the U.S. neo-conservative movement.
Strauss's ideas have been cultivated in Canada by the so-called Calgary school — a right-wing political clique at the University of Calgary — with which Harper and his mentor Tom Flanagan have long been associated.
Strauss was deeply suspicious of democracy. He argued that the public isn't capable of making intelligent political decisions, and so should be kept pacified rather than informed. The real decisions should be left to an elite.
With the elite making the decisions for a docile, dim-witted public, who needs the media — except to type down the Prime Minister's words?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca
Additional articles by Linda McQuaig
Whores don't like being called a whore.
Pathetic. She couldn't even get to the third sentence without lying. Helen Thomas doesn't get to ask many questions because she's no longer an actual journalist. She only writes columns now, and those columns are invariably Bush-bashing. If it wasn't for the fact that she's the "Dean of the White House Press Corps" (an honor you get by being, well, extremely old), she'd have had her press pass revoked the moment she quit UPI.
TOH asks ridiculous, hackneyed, old leading questions of no interest to the average citizen.
Lol
"What is 'How do you destroy the collective sex drive of an entire nation?', Alex."
We'll be glad to send her for cloning as long as you promise to keep the original and all copies on Your side of the Canuckistan border.
Don't most civilized countries have laws prohibiting a large number of women who are that ugly congregating in one place.
Like, I mean, the whole IDEA of the truth is SEW last century. It's sew old it just REEKS! The modern MSM have, I mean, not one clue, I mean, not the SMALLEST clue what the TRUTH is!
So when a politishun goes and tells the truth about them, it just blows their little teeny minds! It is just, like I say, SEW unFAYer. I mean, have a, y'know, HEART or something.
Harper has better things to do than waste time with a room full of Loons.
What a dim bulb! This journalistic brain fart whines that Bush controls which "reporters" get to ask questions and then highlights why this is in the next sentence with the Thomas Troll's next "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question. What a dufus!
"If the Iraq war wasn't about oil, what was it about?"
Bush should have told her "don't get stuck on stupid, Helen"
Helen Thomas is the master of the question, "____ when did you stop beating your wife?" That sort of question, and ad hominem attacks are not endearing qualities in journalists..., but then there are so few journalists these days. Harper is smart. He has cut the eastern-dominated press corps off at the knees while working one-on-one with his increasing number of supporters in Quebec and out west.
This particular whore mentions GWB four times in her first two paragraphs, and cannot bring herself to use his title, President George W. Bush.
LINDA MCQUAIG
TORONTO STAR
Her e-mail:
lmcquaig@sympatico.ca
The media won't be happy until he emmulates Saddam Hussein.
CNN knew about abuses under Saddam and kept quiet to keep their Baghdad Bureau.
NO BLOOD FOR RATINGS
"... if it wasn't about oil, what was it about?
Anybody .. and I mean ANYBODY who does not know what the Iraq war is about .. has to have had their head burried in the sand for the last 15 years.
I believe that's part of Helen's problem - she has young staff members who feed her these questions and she's too demented to realize how stupid they make her look.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
In truth, it's not even that much. Harper simply doesn't want to have to deal with a hostile reception.
And, in fact, the public shouldn't want the press to be "friendly" with the government -- a la the Clinton (or Martin) administration.
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