HarpoonVille
Well, whadd'ya know.
Stephen Harper's chief fixer, Sandra Buckler, has decided to let the lizard brain loose for a series of year end 'exclusive' interviews.
Why 'exclusive' you ask?
Because, in true Rovian fashion, some media outlets and/or reporters were shut out completely.
Case in point is Kathleen Petty, who hosts CBC Radio One's 'The House', which is a program that actually takes Canadian politics and Canadian politicians seriously.
Given that description it is clear that Ms. Petty has not been excluded because she is a tabloid sensationalist who might go off the rails at any moment.
Quite the contrary.
Instead, the real issue here is that Ms. Petty might actually listen to the lizard brain's utterances in full prior to using them as the raw material to construct real, honest-to-goddess questions about topics that truly matter to Canadians.
As such, it is very clear to all concerned that this Petty woman cannot be trusted to go along with the lizard party line, even when it is demonstrably false, just to get along.
****
Now a number of commentators, including even (gasp!) Mr. Don Martin, have made a wee bit of a fuss about all of this.
Which, unfortunately is just not good enough.
Not the 'fuss' part.
But rather the 'wee bit' part.
Because Ms Buckler's real evil in limiting access is not to cow Ms. Petty
Instead, Buckler is making damned sure that the entire National Press Corps knows and understands that any of them can and will be shut-out if they don't play ball.
Which is why they should ALL make a huge fuss about this right now.
Up to and including going so far as to refuse to grant any exclusive interviews to Mr. Harper.
After all, it's not like the lizard brain is pimping a Ron Popiel pocket fisherman or something.
Because, last time we checked at least, Canada is not yet a infomercial driven shill factory.
And besides, if journalists do not act to put a stop to this crap right now, who knows, even somebody like Mr. Martin may step too close to a real story that really affects Canadians and suddenly find himself standing on the wrong side of the velvet rope.
OK?
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