How Could The Con Media Blow The Elbowgate Story So Badly?

Yesterday I tried to imagine how disappointed the Con media must have been, after trying to turn Elbowgate into a monster scandal.

Only to discover that far from destroying Justin Trudeau, their breathless coverage, and the clownish overreaction of the Cons and the NDP, had only made Justin even more popular.

So I'm glad somebody out there is wondering how could the pompous asses of the parliamentary press gallery have misread the country's reaction so badly?

Because that question really does need to be answered. 

If denizens of Canada’s Parliamentary Press Gallery used the Victoria Day weekend to visit with family and friends back home, they will have noticed a vast gulf between their impression of elbowgate and the views of citizens at large.

Gallery reporters pounced on Prime Minister Trudeau’s gaff with alacrity rarely displayed during the dark decade of Harper. CBC reporter Catherine Cullen pronounced it “clearly the worst day this prime minister has had in office.” Many early reports ignored the role of the NDP in provoking the confrontation, and failed to indicate Trudeau’s elbowing of MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau was inadvertent—though the video makes this incontrovertible.

Why did they distort what had happened to try to make Justin Trudeau alone look bad?

When even an NDP supporter, like Rob McCaghren of Nanaimo, could see that Tom Mulcair and his clown bullies were also to blame...



Watching Tom Mulcair and his caucus create a wall of bodies with which to block Conservative whip Gordon Brown from getting to his seat for the vote on bill C-14 was like watching a clique of jocks blocking the new kid from getting to his locker. Or the shy kid from getting out of the washroom. It was weird, passive aggressive, and horribly childish….

The way I saw it, it was a gesture of assistance–the NDP acting like brats, grinning and smirking while blocking the path between a whip and his seat, and the Prime Minister of Canada–an elected leader of the country who has the task of leading–comes over and puts an end to their silliness by getting Brown to his seat.

How could our hapless MSM scribblers be so disconnected that they couldn't understand that most Canadians would consider that the opposition's attempt to turn the incident into an assault on women, was both outrageous and disgraceful?



In any case, Trudeau responded with a string of increasingly abject apologies for his odd behaviour, which is what the public wants in such a circumstance, while tone deaf opposition MPs milked the episode with quavering voices and offensive attempts to conflate the events with the deadly serious issue of violence against women.

How could they not comprehend that many Canadians might feel like Molly Johnson from Cape Breton did?



For the first time in a long time, I see qualities in our Prime Minister which I know in myself, for better or for worse. I much prefer this to anything else currently on offer (except for Elizabeth May, she da bomb). I definitely prefer it to the soulless backroom dictatorship of one Stephen Harper. How wonderfully normal that our Prime Minister has recognizable emotions. How refreshing that he would take ownership of his actions, even when others share the blame. If I was Trudeau and this was my worst day in office so far, I’d pop some champagne.

Or might react to the opposition's cheap little games like this guy did...


But sadly of course, the two main reasons our useless press gallery poobahs misread the public mood so badly are these:

Press gallery reporters have been chafing under the PM’s extended honeymoon. They don’t like Justin nearly as much as the public does, and some were overly eager to take him down a peg.

They wanted to take Justin Trudeau down a peg, to satisfy their massive egos, in a little town like Ottawa...



Where if they're not sleeping with each other, they've got to do something or go crazy with boredom.

And of course, need to also pleasure their big bosses in a shameless manner, to try to keep their jobs.

So this is also true.

I doubt Trudeau is popping champagne, but Wednesday’s fracas damaged him less and the NDP more than media coverage suggests. 

The men and women who report on Parliament need to get out more.

And I'm happy to report that at least one of them, the one who called Trudeau a political thug in the Guardian, seems to have learned some kind of lesson.

I did not see this coming. Was pretty sure it would hurt him. https://t.co/TyFGYJtfHG

— Stephen Maher (@stphnmaher) May 24, 2016

And hopefully progressives will also have learned a useful lesson.

We can't count on the Con media to be even slightly balanced. We need to break up the Postmedia conglomerate, where everyone sings from the same songbook. Or else.

We need to encourage and financially support the independent media in this country.

And we also need to understand that when the Con excrement hits the fan we can only count on our social media to get the truth out. 

Just like we did in the last election, to get out the vote, and help defeat Stephen Harper and his filthy regime.



And the best news? A Con media that is so disconnected from ordinary Canadians is a blind giant indeed.

Stumbling around in the darkness.

And almost certainly heading for oblivion...

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