Toronto Star invents story to attack Layton and Chow
Accidental Deliberations: The bigger picture
... And indeed it's worth noting that the decision to focus on Layton and
Chow looks to be designed to invent a story where none exists: with
average expenses in the range of $469,000 per MP, the choice to point to
the lone married couple in the House of Commons in order to be able to
talk about a "million-dollar" total looks to be entirely unjustifiable
except as either a cheap headline or a pretence to attack the NDP. ...
And from the comment by Malcolm+ on this post at the above link - Malcolm gets to the reason behind the attack:
With
Ignatieff mired in poor public perceptions, the Liberals are panicked
by the prospect they may actually fall behind the NDP in public support
if nothing changes. Thus, every organ of the Liberal Party - including
the Toronto Star - must be directed to attacks on the NDP and Jack
Layton, no matter how slanderous or bogus those attacks may be.
And, to back up the point about the Liberals failing and becoming less appealing to the public, check out this article in the Globe and Mail by Brian Topp:
The underlying bones don't favour Michael Ignatieff
Brian adds as a footnote, below his article reviewing what the latest polls mean:
A footnote: As if to prove all of this, the Nov. 7 Sunday Star in Toronto repeats the conduct that helped elect Rob Ford mayor of Toronto. This time the transparently political cheap shot targets are Mr. Layton and his wife, MP Olivia Chow. The Star devotes a page to adding up Layton and Chow’s boring and typical MPs’ constituency staff, office, travel and other expenses, and tries to frame them as some sort of scandal. This has nauseated even some of the Liberals the Star works so hard to serve. Blogger “Bigcityliberal,” for example, comments: “Toronto Star’s Layton and Chow story truly Seinfeldian... in that it’s about nothing. Probably the silliest part of it is how hard author Richard Brennan tries to crank this into a scandal. Oh my! The NDP party leader spends more than your typical MP on travel! And... a $2000 per month Ottawa condo-apartment? The horrors!” Indeed.
... And indeed it's worth noting that the decision to focus on Layton and
Chow looks to be designed to invent a story where none exists: with
average expenses in the range of $469,000 per MP, the choice to point to
the lone married couple in the House of Commons in order to be able to
talk about a "million-dollar" total looks to be entirely unjustifiable
except as either a cheap headline or a pretence to attack the NDP. ...
And from the comment by Malcolm+ on this post at the above link - Malcolm gets to the reason behind the attack:
With
Ignatieff mired in poor public perceptions, the Liberals are panicked
by the prospect they may actually fall behind the NDP in public support
if nothing changes. Thus, every organ of the Liberal Party - including
the Toronto Star - must be directed to attacks on the NDP and Jack
Layton, no matter how slanderous or bogus those attacks may be.
And, to back up the point about the Liberals failing and becoming less appealing to the public, check out this article in the Globe and Mail by Brian Topp:
The underlying bones don't favour Michael Ignatieff
Brian adds as a footnote, below his article reviewing what the latest polls mean:
A footnote: As if to prove all of this, the Nov. 7 Sunday Star in Toronto repeats the conduct that helped elect Rob Ford mayor of Toronto. This time the transparently political cheap shot targets are Mr. Layton and his wife, MP Olivia Chow. The Star devotes a page to adding up Layton and Chow’s boring and typical MPs’ constituency staff, office, travel and other expenses, and tries to frame them as some sort of scandal. This has nauseated even some of the Liberals the Star works so hard to serve. Blogger “Bigcityliberal,” for example, comments: “Toronto Star’s Layton and Chow story truly Seinfeldian... in that it’s about nothing. Probably the silliest part of it is how hard author Richard Brennan tries to crank this into a scandal. Oh my! The NDP party leader spends more than your typical MP on travel! And... a $2000 per month Ottawa condo-apartment? The horrors!” Indeed.
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