The Dumbest Five Minutes On Radio

MultiTracking
'DuhVille

When things are really humming down here in the Subterranean Homesick Bluesroom (a.k.a. the hole in the wall office in the basement) I'll have the tinny little transister blaring, a pile of print pieces will be tacked to the walls with grease mark pencil circles all over them, and I'll be streaming all the World-Wide Weirdness I can find under headphones with 6 or 8 windows from all over the Bloggodome open simultaneously.

But in the last couple of weeks that focus has narrowed considerably as the British Columbia election has forced its way into just about every dark and dusty corner of my consciouslessness.

And that focus finally became thinner than a razor's edge this evening when I missed Rick Macinnes-Rae's long awaited interview with Sydney Schanberg on purpose because, in my obsession to find anything new about the election, I found myself frantically spinning the AM radio dial to trackdown Michael Smyth chatting with the (not-so)Giant 98's Ledge Guy Sean Leslie about Gordon Campbell's day on the campaign trail in the Peace River region.

Unfortunately, it all turned out to be a complete waste of time and opportunity because, in all honesty, I'm not sure that I have every heard such willful ignorance from a so-called insider.

First off, Mr. Leslie spent 90% of his airtime waxing Duvall-o-sophical about the 'Smell of Natural Gas Wells in the Morning' (cue the Wagner) while dropping his 'G's and calling Smyth 'Smittie' to affect a non-existent good 'ol boy personna.

And when he finally got down to brass tacks Leslie pointed out that there was no way that Mr. Campbell could lose in the Peace and, what's more, those BC Liberals sure are lucky that nobody has been able to come up with anything that might connect them with those nasty and brutish Federal Liberals.

All the while it apparently never dawned on Leslie that there might be a reason (ie. a poll/a scandal called Virk/a Ferry deal with a company who pools ships with CSL, etc.) why Campbell and entourage would travel to a far flung corner of the Province to spend an entire day outside of the media spotlight less than a week before the election in two ridings that do not need a single second of Bubblepalooza Tourtime for both Liberal incumbents to win going away.

So, as a service to Mr. Leslie on the way off, off, off chance that he actually wants to get better at what he does, here's the deal......When a front-runner gets into trouble and goes into hiding it's called ducking.

And any correspondent who's worth his or her salt wants to find out why, rather than being content to make points with Smittie 'cause he sure can talk real darn good about that there colour of money and all those shiny new pick-up trucks, 'huh.

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OK, OK....I didn't miss everything today. If you want the real thing, something that was even better than Schanberg calling for a Media Boycott of the White House, check out Seymour Hersh with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

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