It's time to add a new word to the lexicon. We have "fisking" defined as "A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form." I propose adding a new word - "zolfing" defined as "doing an analysis of a situation and arriving at a conclusion completely unrelated to and/or unsupported by the preceding analysis".
Zolfing is named after veteran columnist Larry Zolf. Those of you who are old enough will remember Zolf as a regular, consistent and occasionally witty contributor to This Hour Has Seven Days. I stopped reading Zolf regularly long ago because, in recent years, he has been all over the map. His latest article starts of with a good analysis and then proceeds to take it ...well you'll see.
A new government: Let there be peace in the media valleySo far, Zolf is doing fine. CTV and the Globe and Mail made their bias evident early on. CTV talking head Peter Murphy, who wins my award for the most egregious abuse of polling data, and the G & M continuously repeated Allan Gregg's wildly inaccurate data gathered from a Strategic Counsel poll paid for by CTV and the Globe and Mail. The latter, to absolutely no one's surprise, then went on to endorse the Conservatives.The media bias against the Liberals was evident early into the campaign for the recent federal election.
The media, particularly Craig Oliver and his colleagues at CTV News, could not restrain their glee as Conservative Leader Stephen Harper introduced his platform while the Liberals ran the worst campaign since Kim Campbell.
Buttressing this media bias was Allan Gregg, whose polls showed time after time that the Tories were in majority or near-majority range.
Of course, there is no denying the Liberals were incompetent, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant, incompetent, intellectually bankrupt, incompetent and poorly led. And did I mention incompetent? They fully deserved to have their asses kicked around the block although not in nearly so partisan and manipulative a way as was done by the CTV/Globe and Mail/Strategic Counsel axis of influence.
Zolf then continues:
Meanwhile, the Tory honeymoon with the press was beginning to unravel.Chantal Hebert's column suggested that if Harper went to the Governor General and asked for a quick dissolution, the Governor General could call on the NDP and the Liberals to form a government and avoid another early election.
This was the first real dent in the media bias for Harper. But this was really peanuts compared to the David Emerson affair.
Suddenly, the media were dumping all over the Tories. They were demanding that Emerson, who switched from the Liberal to the Conservative party only days after the Jan. 23 election, resign his seat and run in a byelection in Vancouver Kingsway. So said the Globe and Mail in an editorial. So said Tory MP Garth Turner.
Ok. So we have a consistent bias on the part of the some of the media against the Liberal Party during the campaign plus the press actually reporting that the most of what the Conservatives have done since they were sworn in consists of things they campaigned against. And Zolf's conclusion?
The media should calm down and stop trying to destroy Harper, as it destroyed Martin and the Liberals. Let the media return to their original love affair with Harper and the Tories.
Let there be peace in the media valley.
No, Larry, neither the people of Canada nor, especially, the media owe the Conservatives or any other member of the Crooks and Liars Club a honeymoon or a love affair. The Liberals deserved to be raked over the coals for their transgressions and the Conservatives deserve to be raked over the same coals for theirs.
There is a reason why the people of this country consider politicians to be less trustworthy than used car salespeople and 67% of us do not believe politicians can be trusted to keep their campaign promises. These are dubious honours well earned.
The reclamation of the political process in this country requires neither legions of partisan acolytes nor a sycophantic press. It requires a revolution in the mindset of the electorate. Canadians need to start questioning every statement and action of all politicians regardless of party. We need to refuse to accept, much less continue to reward, dishonesty and lack of integrity by all politicians regardless of party. We need to stop saying that corrupt and dishonest practices are all right when our side does it "because we're the good guys".
Until this revolution occurs, we will neither have nor deserve honest, democratic government. And until that time, there should be no "peace in the media valley" or any other valley for that matter.
Well, I can't dispute that the conclusion is a bit of a head-scratcher, but it was an interesting article - and useful if only to point out how absurdly changeable and/or suspect much of Canada's official punditry has been of late. Apart from Travers and Hebert I'm pretty well through with them, and telling everyone I can to take the Bellmedia organs with a truckload of salt.
As for the responsibility for the Liberal defeat: I think everyone acknowledges, publically or privately that Martin's campaign was gaffe-prone and less than inspired. I did think that the TV ads (with a few obvious exceptions) were well executed, especially the positive ones. And I do believe that the CTV/Glove/SC axis of evil had a significant impact on the way the campaign was reported, above all in the "18 point lead!" insanity that defined the political discourse in the dying week or two of the campaign.
But it isn't as though this was the John Buchanan Tories or the Ulysses Grant administration or something. I'm not saying we Liberals should be crowing it in public, but "corrupt" "inept" or "kleptocratic" would all be rather massive exagerations if one contrasts the failures and successes of the late government(s). To what 12 years can we point in Canadian political history and say "See, much better than Chretien/Martin?"
At any rate, I apologize for introducing partisan apologetics into the argument, but what I was attempting to segue into was the issue of "untrustworthy politicians."
How can we examine popular Canadian electoral cynicism without also having recourse to the cross-border contamination of political cynicism? It is a (perfectly reasonable) truism south of the border that politics is pretty much a hopeless farce whoever you vote for - not so here. What countries, in the world, in history, have a political discourse markedly less corrupt, less prone to cronyism, less filled with "arrogance?" I don't suggest that we accept sophistry in place of ethical reform, or rest on well earned laurels, but despair over the state of political morals - at least in the Liberal and NDP parties - is probably misplaced.
The exigencies of budget-balancing and election-time knife-fighting have a deleterious effect on the value of "the election promise," that's clear enough; but what politician wants to lose the battle of absurd promises during the race? Which politician wants to go into debt and deficit when "unforseen circumstances" (or in the case of Harper's platform, painfully forseeable ones) emerge?
I don't defend it - and I hope a political party or parties has the guts to reinvent the political promise by making less of them and committing to them more. But I know perfectly well that making less promises will hurt when it is time to seize hold of the fruit-fly attention of the media, and that "unbreakable promises" could prove to be deadly electoral shackles if, god forbid, some of them conflict with a balanced budget or require program cuts elsewhere to implement.
I'm not really sure why Zolf is so surprised. The media outlets that gushed all over Stephen Harper were, largely, gushing all over the image he'd crafted and the positions he'd staked out; when he got into power, and immediately tossed aside tht image and threw out those positions for their opposites, the media were understandably upset about it. The lesson here? Maybe running as X and governing as Not X isn't a great way to make friends and influence people.
Nevermind the ridiculousness of his call to "[l]et the media return to their original love affair with Harper and the Tories." Personally, I can't think of anything worse for a democracy, any democracy, than for the media to be engaged in a 'love affair' with the government. Even the best governments have people in them that do all kinds of amoral, immoral, and downright illegal things, and the media is our first and last line of defence against these people. If they're so in 'love' that they don't bother to look critically at the actions of the government, what use are they?
When we talk about the reason why a free press is so important in an open society/democracy it comes down to one task they fulfill over any other. It is their duty in exchange for that freedom to always critically examine those that hold the reigns of power in our society, especially if not limited to our elected officials and particularly those that constitute the government of the day. It is supposed to be IRRELEVANT which party they are, all elected officials are supposed to be presumed under public scrutiny (as in the press since most voters are not in a position to follow their elected official themselves for obvious reasons) at all times where their jobs are concerned. I am willing to accept the notion that a certain limited zone of personal/private life is reasonable, indeed I would argue necessary for the stability/health of those holding office. It must however not intrude on their professional responsibilities otherwise it loses that cover in my view.
So when there is anyone arguing that there should only be acting as transcribers for those in power (as in reporting only what the government thinks is news, which appears to be how Harper is operating currently) and not instead fulfilling this function then I get suspicious. I do not care what the political affiliation involved is, this is not something I consider acceptable in our society and will oppose. I can live with having some sources having clearly partisan opinion on their editorial/op-ed sections, so long as their reporting in the news section is fact based and accurately described events without clearly taking sides by ignoring the inevitable negative facts with the positive ones. Still though I prefer that there be at least one or two if not more sources that are clearly not motivated by partisanship and/or profit motive, which is why I like the CBC.
For all the complaints I have heard about how clearly/obviously biased CBC is against Conservatives, what I keep not seeing is any real sound evidence collected and has survived the appropriate peer review. I also have heard more than a few Conservatives argue that CBC is a State run/controlled service yet even when the Conservatives are in power they are out to hurt the Conservatives without apparently recognizing nor understanding the inherent contradiction in the logic of that statement. If the CBC is run/controlled by the State, then it will reflect the biases of those that currently are the State, so by definition then when Conservatives are in power then a State controlled/run CBC would have to reflect Conservative biases. That part seems to go over a lot of heads for some reason. Their own argument requires the CBC to be both government controlled and independent enough from the government to oppose them, in other words trying to eat their cake and have it.
The Conservatives have been able to for the last two years take great advantage of the reality that the media helps investigate and oppose the sitting government as well as providing that government a means to announce their actions as they wish via the bully pulpit that power provides. Now they have to accept that they are the ones under such scrutiny, and rightly so. Now that they are a government it is entirely appropriate and fair for the Conservatives to be under at least as much scrutiny as prior governments, which is certainly more than they have had as an opposition party to date. I refuse to allow Canadian Conservatives to successfully "work the refs" as the American Conservatives have on this notion of the "Liberal media conspiracy against Conservatives" without an active opposition and hopefully prevent this mythology from becoming perceived as reality, as all too often can happen in today’s world, especially but not limited to politics. If anything our media is becoming too concentrated in corporate hands and that to me is a real concern and not this mythical Liberal media conspiracy.
I would hope that it is noted I said corporate, not Conservative. That was deliberate. In this country the corporate world has hooks into both the CPC and Liberal parties and have throughout our history. That they should have a clear and loud voice is to be expected given how we govern ourselves and economics work. When that voice goes to becoming not just the dominant one but is so dominant it effectively to actually shuts down any others voices then there is a real problem. I suspect we would be in even worse shape without the CRTC, despite the CRTC's own history of making some less than stellar decisions, to put it mildly.
Zolphing strikes me as a good Canadian description for a problem that is increasingly coming up in Canadian political discourse, indeed in a lot of discourse generally unfortunately. I am going to try and remember to use this term to describe this phenomena and I hope it has a chance of catching on. I thank you Mahigan for a very nice piece of work here, I suspect that I will be doing a bit on it at Saundrie tomorrow, as I am going to be calling it in fairly soon this evening. I hope my little contribution aids in the discussion. Zolphing has to be one of the attacks we must guard against being successfully used by anyone, it is inherently dangerous and only encourages even sloppier thinking when gotten away with and/or considered an acceptable response.
I perceive, Mahigan, that you feel the same old-time affection for Zolf that I do, and thus the same sadness that he is letting himself run on ... and on and on ... this way.
As others have said so well above, there is nothing surprising - or there should be nothing surprising - about good reporters' remaining critical of whoever is in power, no matter which party. Remember all the old lines? Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? Journalists are supposed to be contrarians and critics, not cheerleaders. If it isn't quite their job to speak truth to power, they should certainly be digging up the truth as well as they can without regard to power.
Zolf once knew that very well. Who can ever forget Pierre Sevigny chasing Zolf and beating him with his umbrella?
I was a bit surprised by this column only because Zolf has been disappointing me for so long by writing as a Liberal apologist. Suddenly, he's advising us all to give the Harperites a honeymoon.
Gosh. I wish the Zolf I once knew would stop writing about politics and write about something pleasant that won't compromise my memories any more.
It's possible, I would hope, that Zolf was being at least somewhat ironic with his closing suggestion, saying, tongue in cheek, that the depressingly stupid media should simply skip to the last inevitable step and get back to propping up Harper. But it's not really clear to me from the context.
Incidentally, in reference to the original post, I think Fisk is a good journalist (and the Independent a good paper) even if he and it have indeed been caught hanging by their own sloppiness a time or two; but he's surely incomperably better than most North American journalists when reporting on Iraq. More fundamentally, he's actually done real investigative journalism there as opposed to just huddling in a fortified compound elaborating on rumours and official statements.
The concept of "fisking" is to me suggestive of the sort of internet right-wingers who suppose themselves to be "hard-headed rational realists" splitting hairs, contesting definitions, and pointing out what they percieve to be contradictions in "muddle-headed leftism"; witness the various anti-Fisk, anti-Krugman, anti-Moore "lists of mistakes" which are themselves often laughably illogical and politically lamentable.
Intellectual and professional rigour is key in journalism; but I think to tackle the Fisks first is to fall into a right-wing trap. You won't catch them O'Reilling, Coultering, Levanting or Frasering their far more egregious propaganda mills.
I'm don't know who is responsible for this blog but your analysis of Zoplf's column sucks big time.
Why don't you enlighten us, then, jim? Just what is the 'proper' analysis of this column?
Jason - As you may have noticed this is one subject where I am both absolutist and ruthlessly non-partisan. When I am writing on political accountability, I use the terms corruption and dishonesty in their broadest sense.
I am not comfortable with NABA ("not as bad as") arguments. Whenever they come up in an explanation, my initial reaction is that the person making them doesn't consider whatever the issue is to be a "real" problem requiring serious efforts to solve.
Progressives were rightly offended when apologists for the Bush regime declared that the US occupation of Iraq was not as bad as Saddam. The reply from our side of the street was volleys of "When did not as bad as Saddam become the standard of behaviour for the US government?". We are moving into similar territory here when you start offering comparisons to US politics. When did our standard for Canadian politicians become not as bad as Tom DeLay?
My perception (rightly or wrongly) of the US political system is that it is incredibly corrupt. I suspect that, in terms of financial mismanagement, our five year Sponsorship Scandal would be considered a cheap week in Washington. So what? The problems in the American political system can only be solved by Americans. The fact that the US Defence Department can't account for 1 trillion dollars worth of expenditures has nothing to do with resolving the issues in the Canadian political system.
A balanced budget and sound economy are great things to have. But they don't justify a billion dollar fiasco in the Human Resources Dept., a billion dollar disaster called the Firearms Registry, the Sponsorship Scandal, promising Canadians the same thing over and over and never delivering it or a host of lesser transgressions. If the Chretien/Martin Liberals want to take credit for the balanced budget and sound economy they also have to take responsibility for all the other things that contributed nothing toward a balanced budget or sound economy but contributed significantly to the damage to our political system.
David Emerson should be called on his dishonesty in selling out his constituents. Paul Martin should be called on his dishonesty for proposing a kinda sorta handgun ban during the campaign after a decade of the Liberals doing nothing substantive to control the criminal use of firearms. Jack Layton needs to explain why a "progressive" leader of a "progressive" party got involved in a bidding war with the Liberals and Conservatives on a reactionary proven loser like mandatory minimum sentences. The "progressive" government of Manitoba needs to be held accountable for its efforts to circumvent the Charter of Rights. There is no NABA defence here and the fact that all the people mentioned in this paragraph combined may be less ethically challenged than some individual politicians south of the border is irrelevant. If the progressive community in Canada refuses to hold Layton, Doer and Martin responsible for their actions, it has no right to try to hold Harper and Emerson responsible for theirs.
It's time to haul out that Rex Murphy quote again - "You can't preach morality in the morning and practice expedience in the afternoon." Well you can - but only if you don't mind looking like a horse's ass every time you do it.
The NABA argument is obviously very weak and part of the standard playbook of political apologies for all manner of pathetic political failings. I'd point to Tim Kreider's brilliant political cartoon It May Not Be A Perfect System for a pithy encapsulation of the value of that sort of sophistry.
But I'm not saying "The Liberals are better than Tom Delay." I'm asking for a not as good as argument argument - not as a justification for doing nothing, merely because I think the exoriation of the LPC lacks perspective. Who has ruled blamelessly? Cost overruns and scandals have to be compared to cost overruns and scandals because all governments have cost overruns and scandals.
If we reject all comparative arguments and attempts to frame political events in perspective, what are we left with? Absolute judgements?
To whom it may concern,
>As evident from my 'thumbnail sketch' of my present situation (below), Canadians are expected to pay more than the penalty of their lives for this country. They are expected to risk their lives in any and all theatres of military operation, return to their civilian lives, lose their homes, families and all of their possessions and are THEN expected to disintegrate into oblivion while our Federal government departments do nothing AND GET PAID FOR IT!
>Brian Bradley
>CONTINUING GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
>PART I: THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
>
>Having paid taxes in this country for more than 40 years, it arrives as no less than a tidal shock to suddenly realize that these taxes are not for you nor I but for a government and its
> cohorts/accomplices in crime that apply these funds for their benefits and not ours.
>
>While serving in the Canadian navy and away from my then established home port, I unfortunately slipped in the shower onboard the warship, to which I had been billeted, and seriously damaged my spinal cord.
> As standard operating procedure, given that the injuries I incurred were not life-threatening at the time, I was confined to my rack at that time and remained there for at least 3 or 4 days before being removed by stretcher and ambulance to the base hospital when we finally returned to the home port. This was after a 3 month deployment in the South Pacific completing naval exercises with the American, Australian and Japanese navies.
>
>With less than 2 weeks of 'examination and recuperation' in the base hospital, I was transferred to the east coast division. Shortly
> after arriving on the east coast I developed problems with movements in my right arm that were never considered significant enough to warrant extensive medical investigation. After release from the navy, I was fortunate enough to obtain the attention and care of a very wise general practitioner who, after reviewing my military
> medical history, scheduled me for examination by an internal medicine specialist. At this same time I managed to obtain letters from a
> neurosurgeon who, along with these other medical experts, was convinced that my current disabilities were a direct result of my accident in the shower of the Canadian warship.
>
>While initial claims to Veterans Affairs were essentially ignored, and hearings in the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB) were unsuccessful, I was forced to bring the robbers to the scrutiny of the Federal Court of Canada.?I 'won' the first decision, which amounted to nothing more than a 'slap on the back of the hand' to the VRAB, who ignored the ruling.?With 2 more 'rulings' against my claim by the VRAB, I was forced to return to the Federal Court who again ruled in my favor but lacked the authority and/or legislation to curtail the VRAB’s unlawful behavior. After awaiting for more than a year to obtain another shallow ruling from the VRAB I returned to the Federal Court where the VRAB then managed to place the 'correct spin' on their arguments, to finally win a decision from the Federal Court.
>
>The Federal Court in Calgary have recently (Oct. 28/05) provided the fourth decision regarding my claim which was again in my favor, but equally ineffective as their previous rulings on my claim. From exchanges with several lawyers across Canada, I have determined that I would have to take my claim to the Supreme Court of Canada (at an estimated cost of over $38,000.00) before obtaining an effective ruling which would satisfy my claim. Now justice is known to be exclusive for the rich and our government (along with their accomplices) as they continue to rob us of our health and resources, but does this ever make such justice morally and ethically coherent with the mandates we give them?
B. C. Bradley