Friday, August 7, 2015

The great and not-so-great debates

The not-so-great debate
Last night's Macleans/Rogers leaders' debate was painful to watch. It was a heavily sloped (one against four) playing field with a lone Stephen Harper facing off against three opposition party leaders and a Media Party Trudeau cheerleader, Paul Wells, who "moderated".

Predictably, the Media Party's National Post front page opinion column by another Trudeau cheer leader was headlined: "Billed as a gaffe-prone bumbler, Trudeau surprises with solid performance".
 
Well, at least the "gaffe prone bumbler" part of that sentence is accurate.  Justin has no record to defend, except for his ultra-thin resume, his bumbling, his gaffes, his broken promises, his shameless collection of speaking fees from charities and schools while still an MP.  However, none of that was challenged last night.  If this had been a debate run by, say, Fox News professionals he would have had to answer for all of it.  But, like the NP and Michael Den Tandt, Paul Wells has been a Trudeau cheerleader from day one.  Neither Den Tandt nor Wells has ever exposed any of Trudeau's bumbling and contradictions to daylight for the public to see and assess.  They have instead, to their discredit, consciously covered for him and they continue to do so.

In spite of having to deal with four opponents, Stephen Harper still came out ahead.

"Mad Tom" Mulcair
Oh, and one thing about Tom Mulcair - his smile looked like it had been botox'd in place (though it faded towards the end of the evening).  Together with his wide-eyed stare this gave him a bit of a crazed appearance.  So, he's managed to change his demeanor from "angry Tom" to "mad Tom".

The great debate
After getting tired of wincing during the Canadian leaders' debate, I switched to the Fox News hosted Republican top-ten candidates' debate in Cleveland, Ohio.  Now that was something to behold.  Ten contenders for the Republican nomination on one stage in a two-hour debate, tightly moderated by three exceptionally talented TV journalists.  The moderators pulled no punches in grilling the candidates who in turn gave frank, concise and sometimes funny answers.  Unlike the Canadian debate, there was suspense, there was drama, there was action and there was comedy - it was absolutely fabulous.

4 comments:

  1. Let's face it. Harper has been a terrible PM. $200 billion in debt is a colossal failure. 2 recessions. Piggy Senators appointed by Harper. Consrrvatives in chains going to jail.

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  2. All the Liberals that went to jail weren't covered by the biased media....when will the NDP and the 2.7 MILLION dollars stolen from taxpayers be going to jail? We did see Liberal lavigne go to jail....Marc Harb's trial was delayed(conveniently) till next year....Liberal Joe Fontana has house arrest...sigh..on and on. Just check our 199 reasons not to vote Liberal.That's hair rising. Lets face it, PM Harper has steered the ship for Canadians..we are the best country in the world...thanks to the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever seen. He doesn't bow down to special interest groups and unions...like Ontario premier Wynne who made Ontario a have not promise...and Albertans are having buyers remorse because they ended up with the communists...yikes.BC got rid of the NDP and Manitoba is sinking with an NDP Govt. All Harper had to do was give the unions and CBC big bucks and he would have a majority. PM Harper cares more about Canadians.The media are on the blitz to get rid of PM Harper because he doesn't suck up to them.Check out the senators on the top of the spending list..all LIBERAL's appointed by Cretian & Martin .The opposition wanted to SPEND MORE money during the recession.Canadians won't be duped...resulting in another majority.

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  3. I wouldn't call it a debate... essentially it was 3 or 4 subjects where the candidates could give pre rehearsed answers. No questions on Health care no questions on immigration etc. etc, instead we were assaulted with talking points on the "environment", like anyone other than radical leftists looking for a way to fleece the taxpayer even further give a damn about imaginary "globull warming" bullshit. As you say, it was pretty safe and tame, a whole lot of nothing with 3 radical leftists and radical leftist moderator hectoring the PM. The closing statements were interesting because that was the only part that wasn't rehearsed. That unrehearsed closing statements exposed Justine as a blathering fool... Justine sounded like an imbecile blathering incoherently about "mithter Harper" and about "Canada being in his bones" UGH! what an idiot! Other than that, it was a waste of time.

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  4. To the first Anonymous: Harper didn't add 200 Billion in debt. He also didn't add 150+ Billion to the the debt as mad Mulcair claimed during the debate. It was 120 Billion. He's also not responsible for 2 recessions (there's only been one during his tenure, a GLOBAL recession by the way, however it's looking like falling oil revenues might push us into another; we'll know after the figures come out for the 6th month which would then put us into a technical recession). I'm not going to say Harper won the debate, but he certainly held his own considering he was using facts to respond with instead of out-of-thin air numbers and hyperbole.

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