Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Really?

How incredibly lame. This is the dreaded attack ad from the Conservative brain trust?



Sorry. The only frame created here is the one they are already in, and that's not pretty.

Seriously, they attack Ignatieff for attack ads. That in itself is a hoot but that the Liberals have released no ads is even funnier. In doing so, they highlight the portion of GritGirl's ad that has the caption 'Tory times are tough times'. Apparently they are, in more ways than one.

All I can say is, if this is the angle they are going with, there isn't much to be concerned with as a Liberal.

This was laughed at by all corners...so they'll be back for more. What's next though? His wife wasn't born here? He parts his hair on the left? Oh, I know. He's not writing a book on hockey, so what kind of Canadian can he be after all?

The polls are pinching these guys and it's obvious.

17 comments:

Cari said...

I think they are not very good with mathematics..34 years, I think it is more like 21 years
Mike Pearson was away a great deal..never talked about then as the PCs were a little more mannerly.It did not matter back then, as along as you were a Canadian by birth, and grew up here, as Ignatieff did..they are jealous and vindictive.

Karen said...

Agreed Cari. They are searching for what isn't there.

Gawd, Harper grew up practically next door to me and had never left the country before becoming PM. He has less of a sense of this country than Ignatieff does though.

They, the Conservatives, spew nonsense and I think Canadians are ready for a more intelligent view of the world.

Steve V said...

What clinches it for me, that's actually not a bad picture of Ignatieff they use. He's smiling and waving, not exactly the optimal visual. It's just a bad, kind of amateurish attempt, that somehow makes me feel better about things. Shooting blanks, and this was five months in the making? I suspect there is better to come, but this is a dud.

Jeff said...

The Tories appear to have farmed out their advertising to a 14 year old with Windows Movie maker.

Northern PoV said...

ssshhh over there
keep it down
move along
nothing to see
whisper: (lets hope the Cons spend all their $$ running these)

shout: oh those ads are going to hurt

RuralSandi said...

Better to have a PM that hates his own country I guess:

"Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States."

- Conservative leader Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

RuralSandi said...

Oh my, what Harper thinks of Canadians:

"I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians."

- Conservative leader Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

WesternGrit said...

Just remember, any ad played repeatedly will garner a bit of the "idiot factor" support. The factor is what the Reform-a-tories rely upon to rally their base...

The 34 yrs is a lie. So is the part about Liberal attack ads... It is amateurish.

penlan said...

They use Gretzky in this ad too. How many years since he's lived in the States, not Canada? At least 19, perhaps more.

Bismark said...

I cracked up laughing when I watched this the other day. Talk about feeble. Maybe in their next one they’ll accuse Ignatieff of having written a lot of books! Imagine the shock and horror that would result…

Perhaps the Liberals should hit back by pointing out that Stephen Harper is a PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN who’s had NO REAL JOB IN HIS LIFE (aside from wingnut welfare) and as for being an “economist” he’s like a lawyer that’s never passed the bar exam.

Anyway, if this is the best (or worst) the Con’s war room flunkies can manufacture, they’re in dire trouble on the attack ad front. Unless, of course, it’s just a foretaste of vastly more rancid and vitriolic fare to come…

Anonymous said...

The Tories appear to have farmed out their advertising to a 14 year old with Windows Movie maker.No, he was used by Dion last winter....

penlan said...

cwtf,

Once again using whatever you can to put down Liberals. I'm truly beginning to think you're just another Con troll, seeing as this is about a Con attack ad & you are supporting it.

Robert G. Harvie, Q.C. said...

LOL.. methinks though doth protest too much.. I like the ad, it makes a good point.. and it will get worse, trust us:

1. Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian of convenience, having spent the great part of the last three decades living elsewhere, and, apparently, referring to himself as "American". When asked about it by Peter Newman in a Maclean's interview published on 6 April 2006, Ignatieff said: "Sometimes you want to increase your influence over your audience by appropriating their voice, but it was a mistake."



2. Michael Ignatieff loves/hates Israel - take your pick - In August,2006, Ignatieff said he was "not losing any sleep" over dozens of civilian deaths caused by Israel's attack on Qana during its military actions in Lebanon. Ignatieff recanted those words the following week. Then, on October 11, 2006, Ignatieff described the Qana attack as a war crime (committed by Israel).



3. Michael Ignatieff is a great supporter/opponent of the War in Iraq - take your pick - Ignatieff was a prominent supporter of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Ignatieff stated that "The United Nations lay dozing like a dog before the fire, happy to ignore Saddam until an American president seized it by the scruff of the neck and made it bark."

There was a time where he appeared to be a good Republican, at one point stating "The Michael Moore-style left conquered the Democratic Party's heart; now the view was that America's only guiding interest overseas was furthering the interests of Halliburton and Exxon. The relentless emphasis on the hidden role of oil makes the promotion of democracy seem like a devious cover or lame excuse. The unseen cost of this pseudo-Marxist realism is that it disconnected the Democratic Party from the patriotic idealism of the very electorate it sought to persuade."

Of course, later, as the war lost favor, his attitude changed and he became an opponent of the Iraq war, suggesting his initial (very strong and clear) views were errors of judgment, by presenting them as the commentary of an academics and intellectual, as "generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea". In politics, by contrast, "Specifics matter more than generalities".



4. Ignatieff opposes/supports the use of extreme measures to combat terrorism - take your pick - in his writings, Ignatieff has suggested that western democracies may have to resort to "lesser evils" like indefinite detention of suspects, "coercive interrogations", targeted assassinations, and pre-emptive wars in order to combat the greater evil of terrorism. Again, as he has become esconced in the Canadian Liberal hegemony, he has distanced himself from such statements.



5. Ignatieff is an Elitist who shows little regard for the common person - The measure of Michael Ignatief was illustrated in his derision and dismissal of Ukranians seeking an independant state as evident in the comments in his book, "Blood and Belonging" where he wrote, “Ukrainian independence conjures up images of embroidered peasant shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phony cossacks in cloaks and boots, nasty anti-Semites. Going further and stating that “My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside, I’m also what Ukrainians call a Great Russian, and there is a trace of old Russian disdain for these ‘little Russians’”.

As Ukranians lobbied and protested for the establishment of an independant state, Ignatieff wrote of his annoyance: "I remember expatriate Ukrainian nationalists demonstrating in the snow outside ballet performances by the Bolshoi in Toronto. 'Free the captive nations!' they chanted. In 1960, they seemed strange and pathetic, chanting in the snow, haranguing people who just wanted to see ballet and to hell with politics. They seemed fanatical, too, unreasonable. Hadn't they looked at the map? How did they think Ukraine could ever be free?"

Steve V said...

rob

I'm sure you guys are all damp and what not, but these ads reek of desperation. About all I can see you achieving (and not the ads don't even run like this in Quebec, because that crap doesn't fly) is you alienating immigrants, a subset you desperately need with Quebec LOST.

This is more a testament to how bad it's got for you guys than some testament to strength, wherein Liberals are afraid. Truth of the matter, nobody is, and if you're expecting a Dion redux, well...


penlan

Just ignore him, the real world does, that's why he's here. It's as simple as that, nobody with a keyboard.

Bismark said...

I suggest that Rob is a "Canadian of convenience" by virtue of the fact that he's be4n too fat and lazy to explore the wider world beyond the inner sanctum of his own anal cavity.

Anonymous said...

penlan -
Sorry to disappoint you but I am not playing partisan politics with any party.

If you want to drink the Liberals kool-aid, be my guess...

"We" used to point out the hypocrisy and the way that Connies have reduced the level of political discourse in this country. I find nothing honourable when the Liberals emulate that.

Anonymous said...

Re: "They, the Conservatives, spew nonsense and I think Canadians are ready for a more intelligent view of the world."

Perhaps you could take it a bit further - in my view Canadians ALREADY take a more intelligent view of the world. The application of this intelligence is where it's at. This holds for Conservatives of conscience (who obviously are NOT the ones running the show at CPOC) as much as it holds for the rest of us.

These Canublican Ftards are running their election campaign already. Apply intelligence. Shut them down.

Love your blog.