One never knows what the Globe columnist Margaret Wente is going to write about next.
One moment she acts like our very own Marie Antoinette, lamenting the state of the modern world, and the fact that there are so many horrible young and poor people out there.
The next moment she's plagiarizing the material of others, or complaining about all her aches and pains, or why she couldn't be filthy rich like the people she most admires, and tries so pathetically to imitate.
But her latest column has to be one of her craziest.
For there she is claiming that Justin Trudeau is not the face of the future,
That he is a leader with no parade. Whatever that means.
Or that if he ever had a parade, it will soon be over.
Justin Trudeau should savour the moment while it lasts. A year from now, Mr. Obama will be working on his library and someone else will be in the White House – God only knows who. The reality is that the progressive movement is in crisis around the world. Things aren’t looking all that sunny back home, either.
And that the progressive movement hasn't a future either....
Not in this country...
The energetic idealists who are eager to turn Canada into the most climate-friendly, inclusive, feminist, diversity-positive country on the planet need to keep in mind that most Canadians don’t care much about any of these things. They didn’t elect Mr. Trudeau to be the new face of global progressivism. They elected him because he looked like a credible alternative to Stephen Harper.
Or anywhere.
Progressives have had no answers to the recession of 2008, to the wildly uneven effects of globalization, or to a new era of slower growth that may now be a long-term fact of life. In Britain, the Third Way was washed away by a left-wing leader who’s a lot loonier than Bernie Sanders.
Even though the forces of change are on the move in the U.S., Britain, and Canada.
Only progressives can save the world, from those who would destroy it.
Justin Trudeau is more popular than he was the day he defeated Harper, so he must be doing something right.
He is one of the faces of a new generation of leaders....
And all Wente is trying to do is nibble him down to size, like Preston Manning did the other day.
To try to destroy our new found hope and optimism.
And make it look like Rona Ambrose is the leader with a parade...
Which of course couldn't be more absurd.
And Wente's entire article is just a pathetic hatchet job, which reflects the bitterness of the Cons.
And is best summed up by these comments from a couple of Globe readers:
Another dog set on the Prime Minister by Harperites who seriously failed Canadians but still resent their loss!
NS Bill
In my remembrance of the Globe and Mail, I have never known it be so persistently on the attack of any politician, let alone a Prime Minister, so close to their election. For the most part, even Stephen Harper was given scant scrutiny despite the many opportunities that the paper was given to criticize his terrible leadership and governance.
As for Wente, well she is who she is. No hope!
Don227
For that is so true. It is just another barking dog. The Cons are bad losers, and there is no hope for Wente.
Who depressed by her own life, with good reason, would attempt to depress us all.
And like Preston Manning, is also losing her marbles.
Or whatever...
She's been around for far too long.
Like the Cons her time has passed.
And she really should retire to her own misery. Or be fired.
As soon as is humanly possible...
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Justin could sign up some of the con clowns at the globe if a parade is what they want. I must say that resent paying for the outrageous drivel that passes for journalism at the Globe these days. If it wasn't for a decent business section I would have packed it in a long time ago.
ReplyDeletehi anon...yet it really does defy belief that the Globe would allow Preston Manning to rant and rave about Justin Trudeau, for no good reason. And then let Margaret Wente do exactly the same thing a day later, with an article that might as well have been plagiarized from the one Manning wrote. Their standards really are getting lower and lower...
DeleteNo need to fire her as she will soon be unemployed when the miserable Postmedia chain goes under. Perhaps, that is the source of her despair, which must surely permeate every nook and crany of that poor excuse for a newspaper chain. She conflates her impending job doom with that of the country. These are not the same, since one is going cheerfully into a bright new future, While the other is going in the garbage heap of the past. The future belongs to the new generation, and not the old and cranky men and women that make up Harper's dwindling base. This has always been so, but they refuse to live in the true reality of the moment.
ReplyDeletehi anon...yes she shouldn't be fired. Why let her go out with a bang rather than a whimper, as she deserves. And yes I think you're right, they are conflating their grim situation with the state of the country, and trying to drag us all into their pit of despair.
DeleteAs I said in my post, I've been monitoring Wente for years, but that article had to be one of the weirdest I've ever seen...
She is over retirement age, and has a good pension. She won't starve or beg in the streets.
DeleteAnonymous 9:47, while I certainly agree with bringing in new blood, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are of the same generation as Wente (Sanders is older than she is). Not all of us boomers (or war babies) are cranky or rightwing.
No answer for the Great Recession of 08?
ReplyDeleteOutside of re-regulate and break up the banks into commercial/personal and investment sectors, tax high earning investments at the same rate as income, dump lots of money into a real national action program, stop tax cuts for high income earners etc? The same ones that columnists like Peggy refused to consider and instead still go with the same free marketer/libertarian bullshit that got us in this mess in the first place?
hi Dan...yes nowhere is their any acknowledgement that if we're in an economic mess these days it was largely due to the way the Cons mishandled the economy. And her characterization of Bernie Sanders, and the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as loonies ,tells us all we need to know about where that old Thatcherite Wente is coming from....
DeleteWhy would anyone still be reading Ms. Wente's column? To do so is to grant license to plagiarism………….
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to tell without a lot of searching but I don't think she actually plagiarised anything in that column. A lot of aggressive rephrasing perhaps but let's give credit where credit is due---who is her minder anyway?.
DeleteShe may have written this all by herself.AND she even got the IPSOS poll results correct. It's a pretty good day for Wente.
It's also good that she is attacking Trudeau. She's so consistently wrong that we are almost guaranteed a Liberal majority next election.
Maggie's faculties Wenteaway a while ago.
ReplyDeletehi rumleyfips...well actually she surprised me a while back with a column that almost made sense. But I see it was a mere flash in that rusty pan, and she's back to writing the same old tripe...
DeleteOne could say Wente is out of touch with Generation X and the Millenials or just out of touch. Wente may be one of those people who ages in place, the place she was in 1970 and hasn't moved forward.
ReplyDeleteIts called freedom of the press and she ought to be able to write what she pleases and her employer will find the public does as it pleases. They don't buy the paper. Gee wonder why the print media is going down in flames. well we could start with writers like Wente.
Not much can be done for the economy, but having a nice P.M., who sends e-mails to people who need them at that moment, as he did on Valentine's day, is good.
Many voted Liberal because they were voting against the Conservatives. However, Wente does not acknowledge Trudeau's continued "honeymoon" with Canadians.
If we can't fix what is wrong right now, at least we might be happy, while we work on it.
hi e.a.f...well the Globe keeps her on because she knows how to write outrageous things, and provoke a reaction. I don't know if you read the comments to her story. But there were more than 700, and featured one Con after the other telling how brave and brilliant she was to tell the "truth" about Trudeau. After reading a couple of dozen I had to stop lest I vomited all over the keyboard...;)
DeleteGreat post, Simon. it clearly shows that the Globe is a tired old paper still trying to fight yesterday's wars. I, too, have been long-mystified by its slavish devotion to Wente, who sullies the Globe brand even more than other contributors. In an age of rapidly-declining newspaper subscriptions, one has to wonder if there is some kind of corporate suicide wish being acted out before readers' eyes.
ReplyDelete"To try to destroy our new found hope and optimism."
ReplyDeleteThat might be flying well in Quebec .... not so good out here in Alberta.