MARCH APRIL 2006

Wednesday, April 26, 2006
SNOW IN THE FORECAST

Fox News TV anchor and radio show host Tony Snow accepted the White House press secretary position today after getting a medical clearance from his doctors- he had just recovered from cancer. Meanwhile, life goes on at Fox News, they already have replacements lined up. I guess Dan Senor can keep his day job- he'll at least be able to see his wife more often (Campbell Brown).

The University of Western Ontario must be no good at placing its grads in press secretary jobs at the White House after all. Rats.

Yet another journo from TV land bolts to politics! There was a big writeup in the Ryerson Review of Journalism about it, too, about all these people leaving to go work in politics because they were bored and fed up doing the same old reporting all the time. It's the same old beat, no chance of advancement to management or to writing columns, according to that Ryerson article I read.

So these journalists get fed up and they leave. I also think they get fed up with being fired and laid off all the time, plus the pay in journalism is terrible. I can sort of relate because I up and ditched journalism to try politics, though I'm sort of fed up with politics already.

Life in TV news, and on the radio, must be really terrible if Tony Snow feels compelled to take the White House job, a job which ate Scott McClellan alive. Read on TVNewser that his Fox News friends think Snow has lost his marbles. We'll see how Snow does.

Speaking of radio, read that David Lee Roth got canned in favor of shock jocks Opie and Anthony. Roth was the replacement for Howard Stern; obviously that did not go well for him at all. So lots of shakeups in radio land recently, including this Tony Snow announcement today.
// posted by John Cairns @ 10:30 AM 0 comments

Monday, April 24, 2006
"PRIME MINISTER BOB RAE"- GOD HELP US ALL

Well, you cannot expect a notoriously unimpartial fool like me to say anything good about Bob Rae's entry into the Liberal leadership race today.

What a bizarre turn of events. I look at Rae and all I can think of is "NDP".

What's worse, he was a complete disaster as premier, with the deficits and the disasterous Social Contract, and the Rae Days, and the high taxes and the rest of it. He spent part of today's launch speech apologizing for his mistakes. Well, now he's making an even bigger mistake- running for Liberal leader.

I personally find it hard to believe that any right-minded Liberal would want to vote for him. Put another way, suppose Ontario ex-Premier David Peterson came out of retirement to run for leader of the federal Tories?! That would make no sense either. Peterson, by the way, is trashing Rae at every turn and publicly backing Michael Ignatieff. I don't blame him for being mad. If I were a Liberal, especially a Liberal in Ontario, there would be no way I would support Bob Rae for leader. But this fool Rae apparently has some support.

There are people who think Bob Rae is just the guy to "unite the left". But I don't see how that will happen. This is just going to anger the NDP and galvanize them even more. Jack Layton already hates Rae's guts and is having a cow over this defection to the Liberals. They're already mad at Buzz Hargrove for all the help he gave the Liberals in the last election! If Rae actually wins the leadership (which I doubt), the left will tear itself apart.

I don't get it! Is the Liberal Party of Canada so desperate to run from the mistakes of the Paul Martin/Jean Chretien era that they have to turn to some turncoat New Democrat to lead them?! Almost as bad are these other guys in the race, and oh, two women. Most of them had nothing to do with much of what went on in Parliament for the last decade and have hardly any federal experience, certainly less than two years in a few cases. One of them hasn't lived in the country for years before running for leader. Another is a turncoat who ran once to become leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Still another was a lefty hack Education Minister in Ontario who has "charisma" but no federal political experience at all. Then you have that ex-goalie thinking of running whose national day-care efforts are being tossed out and replaced by the federal government as we speak.

This race is a joke! What a bunch of mediocrities you have, people with no federal experience or hardly any federal experience running for leader, or experience ruining Ontario. And one of them might actually win.

You would think Stephen Harper won't have to worry about any of these folks but I'd sure worry. My fear is that one of these hacks might catch fire and get into office as Prime Minister; then think of the damage they'll do to the country. Bob Rae is a disaster waiting to happen, and for that matter, so is his leadership campaign. As I say, God help us if he wins, or if people in Canada are crazy/stupid enough to put him in. Then we'll all need our passports to escape to the 'States.

This is proof that you can't get rid of politicians, even when you toss them out on their rear ends at election time in this country! They just keep coming back! What other Liberal/turncoat is going to run for leader? David Orchard? Joe Clark?! Clark might as well run- everyone else is.

// posted by John Cairns @ 9:42 PM 0 comments

POLITICS: ROUGH BUSINESS

Last week was the big bloodbath at the George W. Bush White House. Among others, Press Secretary Scott McClellan got the boot and took the fall for all the White House's problems.

I had thought that being a White House press secretary would be a cool job to have. I guess not, you get a lot of flack and take the blame for the decisions that get made on high. Like---- going into Iraq. Scott McClellan didn't make that decision, but he takes the blame anyway for the low approval ratings. It's too bad. You know, we had a similar shakeup up here in Canada and it always sucks when people walk the plank. I can sympathise, because I worked on political campaigns as part of the press team on more than one occasion. The press secretary's job is a thankless job for the most part, with long hours and a lot of grief. I can tell you that a lot of things are beyond their control, a lot of real decisions get made by other people. Having people above them who know what they're doing sure helps a lot. It would be much easier to be the speechwriter than the press secretary, at least they get some credit for making the good speeches. But press secretaries have to face the media all the freaking time and take all the heat. Anyway, Scott McClellan has walked the plank.

Read an article in the Huffington Post by lawyer-in-exile Rachel Sklar speculating on who the replacement is going to be. A lot of people think it could be Tony Snow, the Fox News talking head and political host. But Sklar thinks it could be 34-year-old Harvard Business School grad Dan Senor, who used to work as an aide for Spencer Abraham. He now works as a strategy consultant in D.C. and recently got married to NBC News correspondent Campbell Brown. Sklar is taking a lot of flack(!) because she happens to know the guy, claims she went to college with him and actually had nice things to say about him. It turns out Dan Senor did his undergrad at the University of Western Ontario.

Western?! Hey, this is impressive, a Western grad in the White House. Maybe. (Did Rachel Sklar go to Western too?) Why did he go there, I want to know. Was he a local?

Wow, a Western grad up for a job in the White House. This is bound to raise us Western people up a notch.

What bugs me is that the other place I went to, the University of Saskatchewan, never has any of its alumni going on to marry beautiful NBC News correspondents like Campbell Brown, or writing screenplays in Hollywood, or doing movie reviews in San Francisco, or anchoring the news anywhere important. They all go on to lead completely boring lives, for the most part, usually in Alberta. There's no reason at all for this, because the U of S gives you a completely good education. But the problem is they have no decent alumni network, so your life is ruined after you leave! This was why I went to Western- to make up for the fact that I went to the U of S! So that I could still have a chance to live in a big famous city like New York or LA, or Washington D.C.! Anyway, enough about Dan Senor.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:52 PM 0 comments

Saturday, April 08, 2006
LIGHT 'EM UP

Got fed up watching sports on TV all the time and decided to go to a movie.

Saw the flick Thank You for Smoking, which had all the elements that I usually like: politics, Hollywood, the media, and of course lobbyists. I liked this movie a lot.

I'll talk about the movie later but thought I'd post a movie review on this flick from James Rocchi at CBS 5 San Francisco. Uh, yes, fellow Westerners, it is indeed THAT James Rocchi, of CHRW fame.

And yes, this was the movie that was supposed to have had that infamous Katie Holmes sex scene in it, but these incompetents lost the reel. Or Tom Cruise had the scene nixed. Or something. Anyway, it's under investigation.

P.S.: For those wondering, I have added Rocchi's weblog and also Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert to the links under H'Wood.

// posted by John Cairns @ 11:34 PM 0 comments

BELINDA NOT RUNNING FOR LIB LEADERSHIP

Wow, this is a bit of a shock; Belinda Stronach announced today she is not running for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. Story from CTV.

And in her announcement she trashed the process by which the Liberals choose their leaders. The Liberals are yet again holding a delegated convention with the people voting for leader chosen by local riding associations. From what I gather there can be entire slates of delegates chosen in each riding for one candidate or another, so if you finish second with 20% of the vote in a riding or something like that you can still end up with no delegates at the end of the day. And quite a sizable number of delegate ositions are reserved for "ex-officio" members and other party bigshots: the old boys club! From what I gathered listening to Mike Duffy and the rest of them, a lot of that "old-boys network" is either backing Bob Rae or Michael Ignatieff. The Chretien crowd is backing Rae, the Trudeau and Turner crowd are with Ignatieff, according to Duffy. Scott Brison has the Earnscliffe gang from what I gather, assuming he runs.

With all these delegates tied up Belinda was at a disadvantage from the start and you could tell she was really bitter at what seemed like a lack of support from the party bigshots. When she ran for the Tory leadership she never had these kinds of problems. It was a one-person one-vote process and Belinda could sign up all the members she wanted, plus she had plenty of endorsements from big names in the party like Bill Davis and Mike Harris, and access to the top organizational talent in the country, people like John Laschinger. Plus, there was a preferential ballot which eliminated all the horse-trading on the convention floor. This upcoming Liberal convention promises to be similar to the 2003 PC race, which was the most notorious convention in history because of the horse-trading that went on. That David Orchard deal helped kill that party!

As it stands, this Liberal race is bound to end up in a brokered four-or-five ballot convention. Which is normal for these delegated conventions, by the way. These delegated conventions may be fun to cover but they are a throwback to the machine politics of a bygone era and are basically a disgrace. I prefer the way the Tories pick their leaders these days with a direct vote, it cuts down on all the deal-making nonsense and reduces the power of the political bosses.

Robert Fife was saying on CTV News that the real reasons Belinda isn't running have nothing to do with this high-mindedness about the process: that it all comes down to her troubles speaking French plus her organizational difficulties. That Reg Alcock maybe was not up to the job. Maybe those were factors, but I think Belinda truly feels the deck is stacked against her and is completely ticked off at the party because of the good-old-boys networks and the power they have over the way leaders are selected. She has every right to be mad. I'm disgusted with the way the Liberals operate, too. I happen to think Belinda's complaints about the process have a lot of merit. But that's the way that party operates. Welcome to the Liberals, Belinda!!! Anyway, one less leadership candidate. Tomorrow, Michael Ignatieff and Stephane Dion join the race. Also stories that the toast of Prince George, British Columbia, Hedy Fry, may run too. (Hee hee hee.)

// posted by John Cairns @ 5:09 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, April 05, 2006
GERARD KENNEDY IS RUNNING: LIB RACE IS ON

Well it's been a big past couple of days in Canadian politics. I gotta say, if you're a political junkie life is great.

Parliament's back, Ralph Klein has stepped down as Alberta premier, and now the Liberal leadership contenders are throwing their hats into the ring.

Today, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty held a cabinet shuffle to replace Education Minister Gerard Kennedy, who has quit his post to run federally for the Liberal leadership.Kennedy ran the Toronto food bank and has Western roots, and is bilingual. He's seen as a rising star in the party but he's also on the left of the party as well. Still, he's seen as someone who could be a contender in the race.

Kennedy joins Don Valley West MP John Godfrey and former Liberal candidate Martha Hall Findlay in the leadership race. Another potential candidate, Michael Ignatieff, is expected to announce on Friday.

Meanwhile, former NDP Ontario premier Bob Rae has officially applied for membership in the Liberal Party, presumably in advance of a leadership run. Story from CBC.

Already he's facing opposition from the likes of David Peterson, as this story indicates. Rae certainly has plenty of baggage from his NDP days. A lot of conservatives out there are salivating over the prospect of Rae leading the Liberals. Then they can run against his disasterous record as Premier.

All in all, I have to say the Liberals have so far attracted an utterly unimpressive group of leadership candidates. I even read a report that David Orchard is thinking of running for the leadership, too, of all people, and all I have to say is he'll fit right in with Belinda and Scott Brison and the rest of them. The Liberals seem hell-bent on replacing the old Progressive Conservatives as the greatest collection of losers ever assembled.
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:08 PM 0 comments

Monday, April 4, 2006
KLEIN MUST GO

Today I want to talk about Alberta soon-to-be ex-Premier Ralph Klein.

As you have no doubt heard by now he only received 55% approval at the Alberta PC policy convention, a shockingly bad performance. I know Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams has talked about the ingratitude of these people in the Alberta PC party and all that, and he's right. Ralph Klein has led his province through some really good times. To turn against him is treachery in anyone's book.

Nevertheless, he has to go now. 55% is just a terrible showing, and too many people want the leadership race to start already. Ralph clearly looks like a leader adrift these days. He's gone after Oberg for organizing against him and has even thrown stuff at pages in the legislature! This guy has been a loose cannon on the health care file as well, with his rants about private health care embarrassing the Prime Minister.

He's just an embarrassment. Which is too bad, because for a long time he was a great premier for Alberta. The economy is great, the debt is gone, and life there is good. But it's time to Klein to go. His party slipped back in the last provincial election and the public is turning against him. Clearly it's time for renewal, so that the PCs don't get hurled out of office completely and get replaced by--- whomever.

The usual names like Jim Dinning, Lyle Oberg, Ted Morton etc. have been bandied about but the big news of the weekend was the rumor that Preston Manning might run for the leadership. Manning basically is looking for the party people to beg him to run. It's odd because Manning doesn't really have much of a history with the Alberta PCs- his father, Premier Ernest Manning, was a Social Crediter, and so was he! It would really be bizarre to see Manning in the race, but then again, look at all those ex-PCs running for the Liberal leadership. These are strange times in Canadian politics.

What would be strangest of all would be to see Klein attempt to stay on. His staff loyalists are absolutely pressing him to stay on, according to the National Post. It's easy to see why; they want to save their jobs! The Alberta PCs are in disarray right now; they look like they are in worse shape than the federal Liberals! Klein needs to call a convention now and get it over with, so that the party won't tear itself apart.

// posted by John Cairns @ 4:48 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 30, 2006
BYELECTIONS TODAY

I am finished working on yet another by-election campaign and I am happy to report that my win/loss record is improving. Lesse, this is what, three wins now versus, I dunno, I quit counting all the losses.

The food at Christine Elliott's victory bash was very good. Polish food, I was told. The mark of a great campaign is great food. As I say, a sure sign of doom is when the campaign food is all pizza and beer. Same for fried chicken and other low-class food.

All the bigshots were there, John Tory was there, Jim Flaherty was there. Jim Flaherty had to be there, he's Christine Elliott's husband.All in all the Tories took 2 of 3 byelections and the Liberals were totally shut out. What is Ben Chin to do now? Go back to TV? Wonder if that job at Global is still open.

ISRAEL ELECTION RESULTS

Tuned in to Ehud Olmert's victory speech on the BBC newscast today; his party didn't exactly sweep to victory but they did beat out Labor, who may wind up being a coalition partner in the next government.

I tuned into Israeli TV coverage on the Internet and saw Benjamin Netanyahu's concession speech at Likud HQ. Likud was the government, but thanks to Ariel Sharon's defection and a few other things, they were absolutely reduced to rubble. I watched Netanyahu speak and had no idea what the heck he was saying. I was wondering whether or not he was resigning as leader, but it turned out he was giving one of these Tommy Douglas-type defiant speeches. As in "I'll lay me down and bleed awhile, and then I'll rise to fight again." Okay, fine, but this was just a terrible defeat for that party.

Now we'll see whether the new peace-minded Kadima government will be able to get a peace deal with the Palestinians, now led by (ugh) Hamas. Unfortunately, the prospects of peace seem aptly summed up by the famous last words "fat chance".
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:34 PM 0 comments

ISRAEL ELECTION IS TODAY

Well, I'm in a political mood this week, so that means ELECTION COVERAGE ON THE CAIRNS BLOG, starting with today's Israeli Election.

And for a quick link to election results, here's the link to the Jerusalem Post, which has plenty of election coverage. Actually, the only reason I linked to it is because it's in English.Will it be Ehud Olmert in again, or will it be Amir Peretz? Or Benjamin Netanyahu? I like Israeli politics, the politicians really get into it over there.

I CAN'T EXTRICATE MYSELF FROM POLITICS

Well here's yet another rare political post from me here at the CAIRNS BLOG.

I have recently been roped into doing more political stuff but I have mixed feelings about it. It's so hard to turn these people down, though. They're friends of mine, these folks, and I don't mind giving these folks my time. It's just that I'm kind of sick of politics. I am fed up for all kinds of reasons that go beyond winning or losing.

If winning or losing was the sole consideration I'd stay in for sure because heck, my side's winning these days. The Liberals are in chaos and look like total fools. Their current leadership race is a joke, all the potential candidates are utter mediocrities. I ought to be happy as can be. But I simply feel my involvement in politics is increasingly futile.

I guess this David Emerson business has been the catalyst to turn me right off. How do I go around defending that stuff to my neighbors?! I can't! That's why I'm fed up. And these political people are in dire need of lives, many of them.

Speaking of the byelections, a few local political people have rounded me up off the street to help out in Whitby-Ajax to help elect Christine Elliott to the provincial legislature. She is the wife of federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Basically it's the whole former Eugene McDermott team going out to canvass for Christine Elliott. We went out there for the day and I'm planning to go out there later this week. Elliott is in a tough battle with Liberal Judi Longfield, who was recently tossed out of the parliament of Canada in the last federal election. But Christine Elliott seems to me to be the kind of individual who's in politics for the right reasons. As far as I'm concerned, that's good enough reason to help her out. And she needs all the help she can get.

In other news, Ontario came out with its provincial budget which promised wild spending to the GTA, and John Tory was busy blasting all this wild spending, and so on and so forth. But no one can do much about this wild spending except rant and complain about it to the media. That's what happens when you get a majority government, they get to spend money as if there is no tomorrow.
// posted by John Cairns @ 3:59 PM 0 comments

LIBERALS PICKING A NEW LEADER THIS DECEMBER
The Liberal leadership convention has been officially called for December 2-3, to be held in Montreal, Quebec. I could be wrong on this one but I think this could be the first time one of the national parties has held its national leadership convention in Montreal.

Certainly the first time in a very long time. I think maybe the Bloc chose their leader there. Or was it Quebec City? Anyway, they don't count anyway as a national party. I'm sure they chose Montreal for political reasons: so they could win back Quebec after ripping Quebecers off with the sponsorship scandal. Fat chance.

I'm not terribly surprised they chose Montreal. I would have thought Toronto would have stood a shot since so many of the potential leadership candidates are from the city. Toronto would have been nice and convenient for most of them. Maybe they figure Toronto has had enough of leadership conventions, federal and provincial. This decade alone, Toronto has hosted something like a half-dozen. That's enough.

The Liberals select delegates in late September and they have a July 1st cutoff for membership sales. They have a spending limit of 3.4 million dollars to contend with. Interesting stuff. Expect to see the major candidates declare their intentions pretty soon given this timetable.

And oh yeah, you can finally put a fork in Paul Martin as Leader of the Liberals, he's resigned today. The title now fully belongs to the interim leader, Bill Graham.
// posted by John Cairns @ 7:38 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 15, 2006
HARPER IN AFGHANISTAN

There's really not much more for me to add about Stephen Harper's visit to Afghanistan that hasn't already been written. Needless to say I'm proud of the Prime Minister for going to see our troops. But more than that, I'm proud to be a Canadian.

To have our Prime Minister go over there to Afghanistan to give his support to our troops over there is a boost for their morale. It's the pat on the back that these people need from our country. It's great to see people giving the troops the encouragement and support that they deserve, and to let them know we support them.

Moreover, I think this visit casts the Canadian Armed Forces in a whole new light. For too long, the armed forces has been the butt of derision from people across this country. It's been all bad news about our armed forces lately- about the sorry state of the military's resources, about whether or not we should even be there fighting an "American" war, and so on. The military was blasted repeatedly in campaign ads across the country, as if having a military was something we ought to be ashamed of. They aren't.

What this visit has shown is that the Afghan people appreciate and support the Canadian efforts to rebuild their country after years of Taliban dictatorship. And the Canadian forces are clearly glad to be there- even though they face danger from the Taliban, terrorist elements, and so on. These were people you wanted to cheer for, these troops over there. Our boys--- and girls.

Seeing Harper there with the troops on TV- I'll tell you, it felt like we were taking charge of our own sovereignty, taking up our responsibilities in the world and not leaving it up to these other countries. This is a good thing. You know, it's been a mixed bag for this new Prime Minister. On some issues he's been as ruthless and ham-fisted as his predecessors, but on other issues, like this one, his approach has been a breath of fresh air. Harper looked like a real world leader there, ready to honor Canada's commitments to freedom and human rights around the world. It's no longer going to be just talk about human rights from our country. We'll actually be doing something about making the world a better place.

No longer is Canada prepared to shirk its responsibilities to the rest of the world. No longer is Canada going to sit on the sidelines. What a welcome change.

I gotta say, it feels great to be a Canadian again.
// posted by John Cairns @ 8:57 PM 0 comments

THE SOPRANOS ARE BACK
One of the most highly-anticipated series returns in TV history happens tonight as The Sopranos returns for its final season- 20 episodes in all, with 12 episodes in a row to begin airing on HBO starting tonight. The final shows will air in 2007.

Meanwhile, in a genius programming move, the CBC serves up Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story. And they wonder why their ratings are so bad.I plan to tune in to part of this one, anyway, just to see my former home province Mouseland on TV. You know, the one that all the young people have left because of the policies of supporters of Tommy Douglas. But no one at the CBC bothers to mention that.Thanks to the policies of the "mice" who ran his "Mouseland", the kittens left Saskatchewan for the more prosperous provinces run by the cats. These days we have a federal minority "cat" government, and none of the MPs from Saskatchewan are mice. But I digress.

I don't know how much of this socialist love-in I will be able to take, but it does run two nights. Wonder if these geniuses at the CBC will ever do a bio-pic of William Aberhart, or Ernest Manning! Provide equal time to the "cat" premiers. I doubt it.
// posted by John Cairns @ 4:21 PM 0 comments