I can honestly say there was a time when I looked forward to living the rest of my life without having to think about Brian Mulroney every day. After all, I'm old enough to have lived through this mess the first time. At this point I don't think I could work up any enthusiasm even if I found out he and Conrad Black were about to become room-mates. If you know what I mean.
I've also long since decided that any story about a poll that doesn't provide the exact questions along with the results should probably be ignored.
Watch as these two small bits of cynicism come together to create a giant-sized package of cynicism.
Impolitical points us to a story that claims a poll indicates a majority of Canadians don't want a public inquiry into the "Mulroney-Schreiber affair." Along the way, Impolitical highlights language in the story that suggests the results may actually be a bit, um, skewed. In other words, it may be a push poll.
...the poll found that only 32 per cent of those surveyed wanted to see a public inquiry delve into the details of the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. The majority (52 per cent) said they would rather avoid that spectacle.
But it's difficult to say since the story doesn't provide us with the exact questions so we don't know if those responding to the poll were asked "or would you rather avoid a spectacle?" It should also be noted that, as the story points out and I'll give credit for that much, this would probably be the result that Canada's Shabby Government™ would prefer. The latest Conservative talking point is that the Ethics Committee hearings have rendered a public inquiry unnecessary.
The reason I'm going to point you to the Canadian Press version of the story, and the reason I've titled my post as I have, is because if I read the story correctly the poll was commissioned by Canadian Press itself. Here we have a news organization literally creating the news by commissioning a poll and then reporting on it and it fails to provide the exact questions so we can judge the usefulness of the poll.
I call bullshit. When an organization in the news business is responsible for the poll in the first place, I shouldn't have to wonder what's going on here.
It is worth noting that this poll was conducted by Harris-Decima now headed up by Mulroney's old pollster/advisor/buddy Allan Gregg formerly of The Strategic Counsel. Gregg is also not exactly a stranger to current leadership of the Social Credit Reform Alliance Conservative Party.
The sniff test may be detecting something a tad ripe.
Reminds me of how the CBC and all other news media presented that poll from Afghanistan as being conducted by Environics when in fact they played the agent and purchased the poss results from a US firm called D3 (that funny enough, had Republican connections).