CBC BLOWS IT ON ELECTION NIGHT

Ahem. Here's a lesson for all of you folks in newsrooms everywhere. When it is a close election, as it was in Quebec last night, you have to exercise restraint in making election calls in close races. At the very least, you should contact people in the local riding's campaign offices and find out directly from them what polls are still outstanding. Heck, it's not unusual for entire sections of one riding to vote one way and for the other parts to vote another way. If you actually get off your rear ends to find out that simple information, then you might decide to hold off until all the results come flooding in before you call a riding, and mistakes like what happened last night wouldn't happen.

Congratulations to the CBC/Radio-Canada, then, for calling Premier Jean Charest defeated in the riding of Sherbrooke, only to see him roar back to win his own seat. This isn't the first time these CBC fools have gotten it wrong, either. I remember when they declared Conservative bigwig John Reynolds defeated in 2004 in the federal election (and of course he eventually won). Or how about the time when the CBC jumped the gun and projected an NDP Majority Government in Saskatchewan in 1999, only to have to recant and say they only got a minority. Nice going covering the election, you guys at the CBC. You all deserve a one-way trip to Florida.