MSM Declares All Out War on Prime Minister

Wow. Wowwy-wow wow wow (imagine a Christopher Walken accent). Going over through different media outlets today, it appears the MSM (Mean Spirited Media) in Canada has finally gone passed snide comments and whiny stories about how PM Harper has spurned them and now they have to work for a living. Now it is all out war. That's the only way to describe it. These 'journalists' have finally taken the gloves off and have left behind and pretense of journalistic integrity in a national campaign to bring the Prime Minister back under their leash.

Case 1: Ottawa seeks closer watch on top general from the Globe & Mail

You can't prove that this large glaring factual error was accidental or not, but that point is immaterial to the story. Whether General Hillier was asked to send a copy of his speech to the PMO so the government could prepare answers if questions arose(the truth) or whether the PMO was going to censor the General's speeches(not true) is really not important the story, its basically just a ruse to open the door to allow Stephen Harper's critics to attack him as you can see in these quotes:

Chief of the Defense Staff Rick Hillier has been asked to submit advance copies of his public speeches for vetting by the Harper government, a move critics say shows mistrust of the country's blunt-spoken senior general.

"That is highly inappropriate," Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh said yesterday.

...

Opposition reaction was ferocious, signalling that the Harper regime's at times autocratic style is wearing thin in the House of Commons.

Mr. Dosanjh, and the defence critics of the Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party — Claude Bachand and Dawn Black — said the policy makes a mockery of Mr. Harper's promises of greater openness in government.

...

"I think it's kind of a dictatorship going on," Mr. Bachand said. "I think that is not what Quebeckers expected from Prime Minister Harper. And I think it's bad for democracy. You have to keep a certain distance, especially in national defence ... this guy is nominated by cabinet. If he becomes a puppet for the Prime Minister ... this is not looking good."

So basically the reporter wildly distorts the facts, (see CTV for Hillier's rebuttal) some might say even go so far as to misrepresent the facts, in order to allow himself and others to rip into the Prime Minister. Now look at all those quotes and remember that ALL of them are based on misinformation.

Case 2: Emerson frustrated, ex-aide says from the Toronto Star

Here we have a story based solely on heresay from a biased source. Liberal aide and strategists Jay Epworth can be heard frequently on CFRA defending the Liberal party and is anything but non-partisan. The story paints him as some sort of bureaucratic staffer. But it doesn't really matter if this source is being honest or not, it comes down to a he-said-he-said situation with no supporting evidence to back Epworth's claims. To make my point I don't even have to state or imply that Epworth is lying, I really don't know, but what I can state is that any journalist should not reprint this sort of claim without some corroboration. All in All, it doesn't even matter if he was telling the truth or not, the whole story is just an exercise to once again target Stephen Harper:

Revelations about Emerson's discontent come at a time when Harper's management style is attracting increasing attention.

The Prime Minister's efforts to discredit Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro — who investigated Harper in connect with Emerson's defection but found no wrongdoing — have raised eyebrows.

Also, the Prime Minister has been accused of muzzling his ministers and engaging in heavy handed information control.

Harper is also under fire for deciding, contrary to his previous arguments, to handpick the MPs who will chair the influential House of Commons committees.

All of these claims have absolutely nothing to do with the original story.

Case 3: Editorial: Harper distorting child-care debate from the Toronto Star

So now its all Harper's fault. The opposition threatening to bring down the Tory Government just last week, the numerous unions and lobbyists lying to us about fake reports and devaluing stay at home parenting, and even Liberal Ministers (at the time) inferring that parents were abusing their kids if they were raised outside of an 'early learning' centre, and its Stephen Harper who is distorting the child-care debate?

That's fair politics, as are his efforts to enlist socially conservative groups to help sell his plan. What is not fair, though, is Harper's portrayal of those who believe the money would be better spent creating badly needed child-care spaces across the country as pie-in-the-sky academics and researchers and special interest groups.

I have followed the debate and have heard Harper say no such thing. The only thing he did say is that he is willing to risk an election in order to fulfill his campaign promise of $1200 a year for children under 6. The story goes on to state the biases that it just criticized the Prime Minister over:

With the budget just weeks away, supporters of child-care centres must throw themselves and their dedication to their children into the battle to persuade Canadians that access to quality child care is not a frill, but a right of working women and, more significantly, their children.

The issue is not about day care, a term based on the clock. It's about the proper care of infants and toddlers by trained, supervised professionals.

...

It is time for a vigorous debate about the needs of children — the one group overlooked in Harper's plan. Advocates of a national child-care program need to go on the offensive and tell Canadians why so many children will end up worse off with Harper's $1,200 "gift."

The editorial then goes on to express exactly one position and one position only at the expense of the other side of the story, the very thing that it criticizes Stephen Harper over. It says $1200 a year is not enough, but at the same time says that National Institutional child-care would be? What about the majority of Canadians who don't want to enlist their kids in such a project?

So here we have three examples, two of lying, and one of, well logical pretzels, all trying to do their best to attack Stephen Harper. The language is quit derogatory and very inflammatory. The 'journalists' involved throw their own integrity out of the window in order to 'fight back' at Harper for his tough and controversial stance on how the Government and the national MSM work together. Not only are they discrediting themselves and tarnishing the entire profession of journalism, but they are falling right into the Prime Minister's plans of making reporters who employ sensationalism, personality politics, and 'gotcha' journalism unimportant and irrelevent. Who will win this war? Time will tell, but it has started and it seems that 'Harper as an egomanical dictator' will be the mantra they will use.