Michael Harris REALLY Doesn't Like Peter Mansbridge

As I said in my last post, I wasn't impressed with the way Peter Mansbridge handled his year end interview with Stephen Harper.

I thought he stroked Great Crazy Leader with a feather, and failed to challenge his many lies, or ask the follow up questions that needed to be asked.

So the whole thing looked more like a cozy chat than an interview.

But I see that Michael Harris was even less impressed.

Last night, Canada’s most overrated journalist and underrated politician, Peter Mansbridge, performed his Yuletide foot massage on Prime Minister Stephen Harper. You came away knowing not much more than the fact that both men love their jobs. Good for them.

And that he REALLY doesn't like  Peter Mansbridge.

In reality, Mansbridge reads teleprompters and provides colour commentary on a lot of parades and ceremonies. He licks a lot in his one-on-one interviews. He is a Canadian news bureaucrat beyond compare. And he gives speeches — lots of speeches.

But then who can blame him eh?

When Mansbridge allowed Harper to get away with murder on the issue of climate change.



CC did touch on climate change and the environment. He reminded the PM that he once said climate change was the biggest challenge facing the planet. CC even asked about Harper’s serial broken promises on regulating the oil and gas sector. Sadly, CC allowed himself and his viewers to be completely snowed by the answers. 

The PM replied that Canada’s emissions were going down and reiterated that protecting the oil and gas industry from regulation was more important than anything else. He boasted about coal. CC said nothing. Fact? The regulations are in place for coal — but they don’t come into effect until 2015. All that boasting is, therefore, BS.

Instead of forcing him to deal with reality:

“Prime minister, such welcome and unwelcome things at once, ’tis hard to reconcile! You say our emissions are coming down, but every other expert says expansion of the tarsands is driving them up.

By asking the really HARD questions:

“Is Canada, as former Canadian diplomat Daryl Copeland put it, the ‘idiot boy’ of the climate change crisis? Have you made us into the North Korea of the environment, as Elizabeth May contends?”

And then of course there was the moment when Harper unveiled his new version of what happened when a gunman stormed Parliament Hill, and he hid in a closet.

Which as I pointed out yesterday is totally absurd...



A normal interviewer would have come to the point: “Prime Minister why did you hide in the closet after the shooting began in Parliament? Why didn’t you join your colleagues in barricading the doors and fashioning home-made weapons of self-defence? After all, you are their leader.” 

Instead, Mansbridge’s performance was all reverse-gear deference. I thought for a moment the PM was resorting to humour when he suggested that he ended up in that closet because of his RCMP training. And, oh yes, because of his special knowledge of threats against himself and Canada.

Where Mansbridge once again let him off the hook, just like he let him off the hook on the question of the way Harper has been destroying our democracy:

Finally, CC, how could you not ask a single question about the granddaddy of all political developments in Canada — the destruction of the parliamentary system by which we have been governed for our entire history?

And of course I was disappointed that the Great Mansbridge never asked him what he plans to cut to balance the budget, now that he's blown the surplus.

And if they include killing the CBC?

But then I think I understand the situation...



And the conclusion seems obvious.

Peter Mansbridge really should retire,

And for what he's done to the CBC and the country.

Stephen Harper should be fired...

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