The Best Thing About Being Stubborn, Mary Walsh, Is That You Always Know What You'll Be Thinking Tomorrow

Mary Walsh pretending she did nothing wrong

Apparently, the shock that she isn't funny -- or talented -- is too much for This Hour Has 22 Minutes "comedian" Mary Walsh.

In the wake of her invasion of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's privacy, frightening his six-year-old daughter, Walsh is refusing to admit that she's done anything wrong.

The best thing about being stubborn is that you know what you'll be thinking tomorrow. Apparently, what Walsh is thinking today is that she was trying to give Ford advice.

“He obviously was not going to listen to any advice I had ... or have anything to do with us whatsoever,” Walsh complained. (The detail that no one in their right mind would the advice of a tragically unfunny comedian is clearly one that has entirely evaded her.) “I’m a 60-year-old woman with a plastic sword. I was just going to give him a bit of friendly advice.”

If Walsh was really trying to offer him some friendly advice -- everyone who isn't entirely numb between the ears knows full well she wasn't -- she might have attempted to get in touch with him at City Hall. As she told Sun News' Joe Warmington, she didn't even try.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes producers explain that they asked Ford to appear on the program in August. He declined. So their decision was to ambush him at his home. Now they're stubbornly refusing to admit that they crossed the line.

When Walsh and the producers of 22 Minutes have become so disjointed that they can't keep their behaviour firmly on the rails, it's time to go. If they won't resign, it's time for CBC to fire them.

The CBC, Unhinged

No laughs to be found when comedy comes second to politics

The CBC has a problem with its comedy. Or, rather, a new problem.

For a very long time, the biggest problem with CBC's comedy was that -- unless it was airing Just For Laughs -- the comedy mostly just wasn't funny. Rick Mercer would have the occasional moment, but the political sanctimony of what was passed off as comedy overwhelmed any sense of humour.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes has long been exhibit A in the sheer unfunniness of CBC's comedy offerings. The cast of 22 Minutes has long been made up of untalented hacks more interested in grinding their own political axes than in making the audience laugh. They could elicit the occasional giggle from left-wingers who found their offerings ideologically soothing, but very little from anyone whose political opinions veer even slightly to the right of a Phish concert.

(BTW, Phish sucks.)

Mary Walsh has pretty much set the bar for unfunny comedy on 22 Minutes, but in recent years she's had some competition from Geri Hall. Consider a Sun News Network parody featuring Margaret Atwood in which Hall and Atwood take token potshots at the fledgling news network and generally take turns at being incredibly unfunny.

Apparently "the home of real news spoken by fake blondes" is Hall's idea of a rolling-on-the-floor laugher. And while some cretins delighted in it, most rational people quickly tire of watching something that makes it clear that it's a malicious hit-piece cobbled together by far-lefty "comedians" who were outraged by a challenging interview that wasn't nearly as outrageous as they want to pretend it is.

That the CBC had previously employed Krista Erickson, the target of the comedy sketch-cum-smear, only further reveals just how unhinged the cast of 22 Minutes has become. In dumping so eagerly on a former CBC journalist -- one who served the CBC, although not without controversy, until she chose to go elsewhere -- is making an undeniable statement about the quality of journalism at the CBC.

They're evidently unafraid of dumping all over their own colleagues in order to direct their rage at a former colleague, now turned adversary by way of her employment at a rival network, one one which differing viewpoints have proliferated.

But just how unhinged has the cast and crew of 22 Minutes become? Just ask Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cue the terminally-unfunny Mary Walsh once more. In staging an "ambush interview" for the show, Walsh wasn't interested in waiting for Ford at Toronto City Hall. No, instead she decided to ambush him in his driveway, as he was taking his 6 year-old daughter to school.

Walsh apparently frightened Ford's daughter, and to be frank: who wouldn't be? To behold Walsh, in the pitch of her demagogic fury, raving at the top of her lungs would frighten a lot of adults. Adults, fortunately, are well-equipped to deal with the appearance of a crazy lady on their drive way. Children, not so much.

What's become the most remarkable thing about the confrontation is just how much the 22 Minutes cast and crew just don't get it.

“We were actually surprised at how humourless his response was,” remarked 22 Minutes producer Michael Donovan.

Perhaps if Ezra Levant were to turn up on Donovan's driveway, waving around a plastic sword and shoving a microphone in Donovan's face while his children are present, Donovan would better understand.

Warren Kinsella & His Desperate Dog Whistle Politics

As the Ontario provincial election seemingly tightens at the midway point of the election, Warren Kinsella is becoming more and more desperate.

It's actually rather ironic. Earlier in the campaign, "desperate" was his favourite word. He took to Twitter to declare the deseperation of the Tim Hudak-led Progressive Conservative Party.

Now, it's Kinsella and Premier Dalton McGuinty who are becoming desperate. But mostly Kinsella.

In a posting on his blog, Kinsella wails about the federal Conservative Party's treatment of a video taken at a barbecue Toronto Mayor Rob Ford held in July.

The guest of honour at the barbecue was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who spoke about the upcoming Ontario election, and rallied guests to support Tim Hudak in defeating the Liberal government of Ontario.

Harper spoke of the need for a conservative hat trick in Ontario.

Kinsella's desperation in raising this video becomes clear when one considers that this non-story first came up in early August and it is now late September.

Frankly, it is precisely that: a non-story. There is nothing reasonably controversial about this video. Unless, of course, one is a Liberal voter or war room worker.

It's reminiscent of a past story in which a left-wing partisan snuck a video camera into a Conservative Party event in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper revealed that -- *gasp!* -- he and his party were working toward winning a majority goverment.

The story was not only a non-story, it was non-news. Everyone knew that Harper and the Tories had been working toward a majority government. Harper coming out and saying so was threatening only to left-wing partisans. Treating a video in which he said what everyone already knew as if it were remarkable or scandalous was nothing more than blowing the left-wing dog whistle.

Harper's words simply alert Kinsella and the left-wing partisans he's counting on to something only they will perceive as dangerous.

Now, in the middle of an election campaign, Kinsella is offering up video of Harper saying he'd like to see a conservative government in Queen's Park. In other words, video in which Harper simply says what everyone already knows. Kinsella is simply blowing the left-wing dog whistle, and in his desperation he's blowing it hard.

It's certainly Kinsella's hope that Harper's "conservative hat trick" comment will scare NDP voters into the Liberal fold. Looking at the poll numbers, looking at the embarrassing incidents his party has fallen victim to, Kinsella knows, as many other people know, that this is his party's best hopes of holding onto even a minority government, let alone holding on to their majority.

As for the federal Tories' efforts to shut the video down, chalk that up to an effort to discourage left-wing activists from resorting to the creepy means of hidden cameras in search of "gotcha" non-stories.

For Warren Kinsella, desperate times seem to call for desperate measures.

Toronto: Welcome to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Panicked city councillors express contempt for democracy

As the October 25 date for Toronto's mayoral election draws closer, so does the prospect of Rob Ford becoming the city's mayor.

The most recent polls have Rob Ford holding the support of 32% of Torontonians. Former frontrunner -- and Liberal candidate all-but-officially -- George Smitherman is running second with 21%.

Many members of Toronto's City Council are rather alarmed that Ford may well be the next mayor. Some of them are all but planning a revolt.

“I hope that the citizens of Toronto wake up," said soon-to-be-former City Councillor Kyle Rae. "I can’t believe Toronto is prepared to do it.”

Rae insists that Ford has no record of accomplishments for the City of Toronto.

“All he has done is attack and vilify other members’ work, he has got nothing he can point to,” Rae insisted.

“Most thinking people in Toronto would be so embarrassed by him being mayor that there would be an obligation on council to do something,” he concluded. "In my opinion, if Mayor Ford is elected, city council will have a caucus meeting and they will choose their own mayor and he will be the mayor in name.”

It's worth noting that Kyle Rae is the individual who threw a $12,000 goodbye party at taxpayers' expense. This in a city where Ford is being ordered to payback $3000 in charitable donations solicited with stationery bearing the letterhead of his Council office.

It's also worth noting that Ford is the one who blew the whistle on Rae.

But it seems that the fiscal priorities of Toronto City Council are an absolute joke: $12,000 parties for themselves, while Councillors whose politics they disapprove of are ordered to repay $3,000 in charitable donations.

Other comments offered by Councillors at this Council's final meeting also smack of elitists who think they know better than the citizens of Toronto.

Others have chosen to take a negative view of politics -- focusing more on what he wants the citizens of Toronto to vote against, rather than what they might be voting for.

“The ballot question has been framed, ‘Rob Ford? Yes or no,’” said City Councillor Adam Vaughan. “It’s just a question of where the no vote moves now.”

But all this apparently seems to be the attitude of Toronto City Council -- where individuals who declare themselves to represent the "thinking people" of Toronto claim the privilege of governing the city however they see fit, and what individuals think voters are voting against is more important than what they may have voted for.

They believe it to be a dictatorship of the proletariat in Toronto -- and Toronto City Council seems to have decided that they are the proletariat.

What's the Matter With Heather Mallick?

Panic clearly building at Toronto Star

When Heather Mallick agreed to write for the Toronto Star, the editorial board of that newspaper must have had one thing to say to her:

"Welcome home, Heather. Welcome home."

It would only be a matter of time before the Star would gleefully provide a willing forum for Mallick's famed political invective -- the one that eventually earned her a very short leash at the CBC.

Then, it was a disgusting hit-piece on US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

In that tirade, she compared Palin to a pornstar, denigrated her family, and in the depths of feverish lunacy, suggested that Palin isn't even actually a woman.

It's in the spirit of such invective that Mallick has approached the ongoing election campaign to decide who will be the next mayor of Toronto. With polls suggesting that conservative candidate Rob Ford has pulled ahead of his competition, the Toronto Star has gone into full-blown panic mode.

It isn't a pretty sight.

In a column entitled "Rob Ford as Mayor? Are We Nuts?" Mallick doesn't provide any real logical reason why anyone in Toronto shouldn't want Ford as their mayor. Instead, she tries to needle long-simmering feelings of resentment against, of all things, gym teachers into a full anti-conservative boil:

"I have a degree of sympathy for Ford. We all knew him in high school. He was our gym teacher, the kind who laughed when the slender shy boys got their hair entangled in the trampoline netting."

Mallick being Mallick, that naturally isn't the full extent of the mud directed in Ford's direction. Mallick also pens the following:

"-He is what he is and, unlike most people, makes no attempt to conceal it. What I doubt is that he is like you. Have the police been called to your home to resolve a dispute with your loved one? Do you have a mug shot?

-Voters allegedly like candidates with whom they could happily sit down and have a beer, as was said about Bush. But you couldn’t drink with Bush. He was an alcoholic who no longer drank. And you wouldn’t drink with Ford because he gets angry rather than amiable as, in just one instance, some people in a neighbouring box at the Air Canada Centre discovered in 2006."

Mallick doesn't elaborate very far on either one of these two issues. There may well be good reason for this. Judging from this article by Linda Diebel -- who seems to have been pulled off her national affairs beat to help bolster the paper's anti-Ford efforts -- the official editorial line at the Toronto Star currently seems to be that they'll happily spread innuendo about Ford, but not make any concrete accusations:

"And that thing with his wife?

'Nothing happened. My wife got mad at me. She made an allegation that wasn’t true and the charges never even got to court ... I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in my life. Rule No. 1 in the Ford family: You never touch a woman.'

Other incidents seem muddier.

Did he tell a couple at the Air Canada Centre that the wife should 'go to Iran and get raped and shot?' He says he didn’t, but doesn’t clarify. In a letter to city hall, they claimed he did. He apologized.

'That was just stupidity. I feel terrible about it. My wife and I had a little bit too much to drink ... I made a mistake that will never happen again.'"

In fact, it eems to be one individual -- city councillor Kyle Rae -- who is publicly pusihing the "buffoon" angle.

Which is actually rather ironic. After all, it's Mallick herself who has earned herself a reputation as a very public buffoon. And it's in vein of realizations like this that the following pair of passages become actually rather comical:

"I am wary of the political truism that voters prefer candidates who resemble them. If a candidate resembles me, he’s a bookworm racked with emotion. I wouldn’t vote for me. Run away!

...Why should a politician’s notional resemblance to you recommend his candidacy? If you suspect that people find you buffoonish and a bit of a bully, would voting for your clone make it better to be you?"

Ironically, it's Mallick's reputation that establishes her as a buffoon and a bully. Even according to the reputation she'd like to think she has, the emotions Mallick is "racked" with have so often proven to be extremely ugly ones.

All of this is, of course, the public face of the Toronto Star's anti-Ford efforts.

Behind the scenes the Star has been editing Wiklpedia entries about the candidate and then attempting to disavow any responsibility.

So the question remains: what's the matter with Heather Mallick? A lot of things.

But those things also tend to be wrong with the Toronto Star. There's a reason why she seems so at home there.

"Socialist Silly Hall" For Levy

Sue-Ann Levy receives an unexpected endorsement

When former Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy threw her hat into the ring for the St Paul's by-election in Ontario, one probably should have expected that Toronto City Hall would have something to say about her candidacy.

But considering that Levy has been so committed a critic of Toronto's City Council, one would have imagined it wouldn't be positive.

But as it turns out, 10 Toronto City Councillors have come out in support of Levy, heralding her as a true voice for fiscal conservatism.

Case Ootes, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Michael Thompson, Frances Nunziata, Doug Holyday, Rob Ford, David Shiner, John Parker, Cliff Jenkins and Mike Feldman all signed a letter of support recently publicized by the Levy campaign.

"Sue-Ann's feisty and critical spirit has always kept us on our toes and we feel that her relentless quest for truth will go a long way in bringing accountability to Queen's Park," the letter says.

Most of the ten are known conservative councillors.

Denzil Minnan-Wong's father was a prominent member of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party. Doug Holyday, John Parker, Rob Ford and David Shiner are party members.

Frances Nunziata, on the other hand, is actually the sister of famed Liberal rat pack member John Nunziata. Her support is a little more surprising.

Whether or not the endorsement -- or the mounting heap of scandal besetting Dalton McGuinty's government -- is enough to help Sue-Ann Levy win the by-election has yet to be seen, but it certainly couldn't hurt.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Inked Liberal - "Sue-Ann Levy = Toronto's Sarah Palin"