Oh, Sweet Irony

Sometimes it becomes glaringly difficult to ignore the hilarity of far-left figures who lack any sense of self-knowledge. When it comes to an individual as curmudgeony as David Climenhaga, this effect only seems amplified.

In an article entitled "David Johnson: Certifiably Old, White, Male and Reliable", Climenhaga works himself into an anti-Conservative rage so intense he leaves himself incoherently frothing at the mouth.

His objections to the appointment of David Johnston as Governor General barely seem to exceed the "old, white, male" portion of the article's title (a description that, ironically, Climenhaga himself clearly fits).

The objections that exceed that basically amount to an incoherent accusation of stoogery on behalf of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Aside from not allowing the Oliphant Inquiry to turn into an unrestrained inquiry into the Airbus Scandal -- although the terms of reference clearly allowed the inquiry to explore allegations by Karlheinz Schreiber that he had been asked to transfer funds to a Swiss bank account for use by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Moreover, in his rush to denounce Johnston, Climenhaga actually manages to forget himself:

"Notwithstanding the endless squalling of the mainstream media about how Johnston is a fine fellow, a servant of both Liberal and Conservative governments who doesn't have a partisan bone in his body, we can take it for granted that if called upon to prorogue Parliament again, establish a rump Parliament or engage in some similar undemocratic maneuver, Johnston would prove to be up to the task. Otherwise, obviously, he wouldn't have gotten the job.

Our prime minister, pretty clearly, does not have much fondness for our Constitution, especially its inconvenient requirements for regular elections and democratic rights. Who better, then, than a 'legal scholar' like Johnston -- a trained slicer and dicer of fine legal points -- to find the necessary justification for whatever it is this government has in mind next."

Climenhaga, after all, ardently supported the ill-conceived, ill-advised and (thankfully) ill-fated 2008 proposed Liberal/NDP coalition.

That was the bid in which the Liberals and NDP -- with the Bloc Quebecois acting as an only slightly-removed partner -- attempted to seize government without an election.

Climenhaga and his ilk raised many arguments in favour of this coalition. Chief amongst them was the claim that the coalition was perfectly democratic because it was constitutional. So was the proroguement of Parliament.

Moreover, in the four years he has been Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has already called one election. Recent rumblings by his party have suggested the possibility of another one this fall.

There's clearly no justification for this comment by Climenhaga. It's really little more than pseudo-slander -- commentary that, for Climenhaga's purpose, by no means needs to contain any truth because it isn't meant to resemble a factual comment.

By that isn't, by any means, even the most fallacious comment Climenhaga offers in his op/ed:

"In the end, of course, any hope [Michaelle] Jean might have entertained of holding a second five-year term must have abruptly ended back in December 2008 when she made Harper wait longer than he wanted to before allowing him to circumvent the will of a newly elected Parliament."

Those paying attention to the continuing ascension of Jean will quickly recognize this to be baseless comment as well. After all, Jean seemed to have little interest in another five-year term as Governor General, as she has been appointed UN special envoy to Haiti.

Whoops. Interesting detail, that. And more interesting still that Climenhaga chose to omit it from his article.

Then again, this article was published on Rabble.ca -- a fascinating left-wing fantasy land where Murray Dobbin joins individuals such as Murray Dobbin and Judy Rebick in peddling left-wing fairy tales to ensure the left-wing masses remain good and agitated, and seethe hatefully at anyone who doesn't share their agenda.

In other words, there is no reasonable test for veracity that anything David Climenhaga publishes at Rabble needs to pass. The baseless comment in his smear job on David Johnston is clearly evidence of that.