Posted on 10/28/2006 12:52:03 PM PDT by GMMAC
Oh, what a dog's breakfast
Peter MacKay's taunts at Belinda Stronach should come back to bite him.
He should be cast into the doghouse
By Dianne Rinehart
The Hamilton Spectator
Oct 28, 2006
There's a bigger issue behind Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's alleged reference to Liberal MP Belinda Stronach as a dog than misogyny -- though that is surely bad enough coming from a former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party.
There's the issue of whether our foreign affairs minister has the "right stuff" -- in this case, maturity and a recognition of the fragility of women's human rights worldwide -- to represent us internationally.
I'd suggest on both criteria he is lacking -- and Prime Minister Stephen Harper should dispatch him to the doghouse.
First, consider MacKay's earlier "hangdog" performance that led Liberal MPs to heckle him in the first place.
After breaking up with Stronach when she crossed the floor to the Liberals side, MacKay left Ottawa, as he would have it, to go back to the farm and lick his wounds. Then he arranged for a press conference with his dog as a prop, so he could suggest that --unlike Stronach -- his dog was at least loyal.
Loyal? How was she disloyal to him? To the Conservatives, maybe, but disloyal to MacKay?
A new book on Stronach reports it was MacKay, not Stronach, who ended their affair after she refused his demand to back down from crossing to the Liberals. As respected columnist Don Martin reports in Belinda: The Political And Private Life Of Belinda Stronach, MacKay apparently reacted "with volcanic fury" when she told him her plans.
If that is true -- and the information is multi-sourced -- was MacKay suggesting the terms of the relationship were that she vote as he votes, as many men do?
Or that she, an MP with leadership aspirations as strong as his, was not able to make her own decision about what she was comfortable with in a party leader (she apparently was no longer comfortable with Harper's positions on many issues)?
Or was it this: Her crossing embarrassed him in front of his leader and his party; it made him seem less manly that he couldn't control the little woman -- it was, in short, a kick to his manhood?
If it was merely about her crossing the floor -- albeit at a crucial time -- would the Conservatives have asked Trade Minister David Emerson to do the same? Is MacKay referring to him as a dog?
Or how about MacKay's own record on political loyalty? Isn't he the candidate who won a Conservative party leadership on a reviled backroom deal, promising not to join with the Canadian Alliance among other things, then breaking the deal?
No, this not about political purity, but about a man who appears to lose it when he can't control "his" woman.
That, in fact, has strong implications for Canada in our relations with other countries: Would U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or any other female world leader, want to do business with a babyish bully?
And what do his alleged actions mean in terms of Canada's past leadership role on women's human rights issues at conferences around the world? This wasn't the first time MacKay indicated what he thought of women: "Stick to your knitting," he once told former NDP leader, Alexa McDonough.
And where is the maturity one should expect from a man supposedly creating our foreign policy?
Consider his actions since the breakup: Martin's book reports that Stronach was forced to move from her seat in the Commons because of MacKay's constant intimidating stares and that he refuses to respond to her most polite greetings.
This behaviour could be considered laughable except for this: Actions that reinforce the dangerous notion that it is OK to intimidate a woman after a breakup are serious indeed.
And now this, MacKay, a former Crown attorney hiding behind the fortuitous fact that his comments aren't in the official Commons record -- which does not mean he didn't say them (and reporters say they can hear the comments on other tapes).
Stronach is right to demand an apology to the Commons for the remarks because those attitudes have a way of finding their way into government policy and because, as she so well put it: "This is our place of work. This is the nation's board room."
And with that, corporate female employees facing daily sexism can surely identify.
Finally, consider: If his remarks were racist rather than sexist, as one woman attending a security conference noted this week, he'd be gone.
And so he should be.
Dianne Rinehart is an Ottawa-based writer.
PING!
Well, if McKay is not MATURE enough to be in office, like the writer says, then how does she explain 12yrs of Liberal immature rule? Was it mature to "pay off" companies for votes? Was that a MATURE thing to do?
Gimme a break! They are all a bunch of juveniles -- only problem is, we elected them!
I thought she was doing the beast with the 'toon, or am I thinking of someone else?
BuBalinda...
Oh, Please!
The Liberals, who want us to pull out of Afghanistan, really care about women's rights. NOT!
OTOH, they do care about the "right" of a pampered little billionaire to dish it out, but not take it!
Where's the barf alert my FRiend?
;)
Why are we even discussing this pathetically inane bore? If "BELINDA!" were male, she would have been last week's news when she ENTERED the conservative leader's race.
What possible reason exists that we discuss this wanna-be on the international stage? She's not even a has-been, she barely qualifies as a "coulda been", or "wanna-be".
BTW, as "unrich" as I am, I wouldn't want that political WHORE anywhere near my potential progeny. She/it might corrupt them into "RED TORIES", which is nothing but LIEberal -light.
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