The only reason why I don’t think this little scandal is going to get the attention of Scott Reid’s “Beer and Popcorn” rant is because it happened during Christmas Day, when nobody outside of the political junkies and media class were paying attention.
There is no question that Mike Klander’s loathesome blog is a bigger gaffe than Scott Reid’s “beer and popcorn” reference, and for this reason, I’m doing my part to make sure this story doesn’t die during the haze of after-Christmas sales. When a senior executive in the Liberal party compares an Asian-Canadian candidate (in this case, NDP candidate Olivia Chow, wife to NDP leader Jack Layton) to a dog, and then acknowledges his error by killing his entire blog (only to be thwarted by screen captures and Google caches), he needs to be exposed, and the party he works for either needs to take a hit, or they need to fire him.
Paul Martin, the ball is in your court.
(Update: December 29, 2005): Klander resigned very quickly, which is about the best we can hope for in a situation like this. But it is still worth reminding ourselves of the sort of Liberals that have infected this party, since, as Greg Bester notes, Paul Martin still hasn’t commented or apologized.
Edited to Add
Again, being on holiday takes you away from the news, and it seems that one only has to look away from one’s nation for five minutes before things start to fall apart. Hot on the heels of Klandar is the revelation that the RCMP is investigating a possible financial-information leak from Ralph Goodale’s office. As scandals go, this one’s pretty old school, involving money and conflict of interest, and by rights Goodale should resign. All I can say is that my parents are ticked, and they don’t usually get that vocal about federal politics.
The Liberals are very fortunate that this is happening over the holidays. The Klandar episode likely will be forgotten when Canadians start paying attention to this election on January 3rd, but the Goodale story’s could have legs. Either way, it contributes to my sense that the Liberals really deserve to lose this election, and the left-leaning voters in the Liberal party, as irrationally frightened as they may be of Prime Minister Harper, should really consider switching their votes to the NDP if they want their progressive viewpoints articulated by a political party with an ounce of integrity.
The blog progressive Liberals should probably be reading right now is Greg Bester’s Sinister Thoughts. He is a fine example of an articulate, intelligent New Democrat speaking on the issues rationally and with great integrity.