Ignatieff as entertainment: I’ve been thinking so much about Michael Ignatieff’s imperial background (elements of the U.K. + the U.S. + Russia = a perfect blend for messing up in Afghanistan) that I’m afraid I’ve been missing his entertainment value. He’s better than TV.
Take this, from a TVOntario interview: “I made a very calculated decision that I am the guy I am.” I like the “very.” He sounds so impressed, as if he solved a math enigma. What could his calculation have been? I am . . . I? I am . . . me? He told The Globe and Mail‘s Lawrence Martin: “What I’ve learned is the importance of words. Getting them right.” Okay. But how about when you were a human-rights prof at Harvard? Don’t they try for the right words down there?
What should we make of a guy who’s always telling us what kind of guy he is? “I have very, very substantial international experience. . . . I know something about ethnic conflict. . . . I’ve been a war reporter.” He doesn’t tell us what he thinks, he tells us what kind of guy he is. Is there a word for that? Is it self-obsessed? You could make a standup routine out of it. The “I’m the kind of guy” comic.
There was an Ignatieff moment at a Canadian Journalists for Free Expression fundraiser back in 2000. It was after a federal election. He warned the gathered reporters, editors, etc., that he was going to upset them, especially, for some reason, John Honderich of the Toronto Star. But he was going to say it anyway. (He’s that kind of guy.) He said their election coverage hadn’t focused enough on issues, and treated the election as a mere horse race. Now it happened that the media did a lot of issues coverage in that campaign. It didn’t matter, because an election is a horse race, but the criticism was uninformed. The facts didn’t figure in. It was braggadocio, or briggydocio, like his fairly rich boast that he’s trying to change the way people do politics in this country.
I didn’t see John Honderich or others squirm at the accusation; they were more puzzled really, as people are when Michael Ignatieff says we must start paying attention to farmers. Huh? Where did that come from? Did he meet a farmer for the first time in his life? It mostly told you what kind of guy the speaker was. The kind who wants to appear daring, and doesn’t really care if he knows what he’s talking about.
But seriously, folks, I think that says something about leadership.
Pandering time: Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a B’nai Brith audience this week that enemies of Israel attack it for only one reason: “Because the Jews are not like them.” I think this counts as pandering. If it doesn’t, I don’t know what does.
Let me allow Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to educate Stephen Harper: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? . . . There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: We have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Of course, time has passed and Arab leaders have signed agreements with Israel. But Palestinians remain basically unreconciled.
Far more recently, a ben-Gurion successor, Ehud Barak, said that, if he were a young Palestinian, he might become a terrorist. If Israel’s own leaders can recognize the understandable basis for opposition to them, it seems a shame when a Canadian Prime Minister bothers to caricature it.
The Iraq war backtrackers: Kudos, whatever they are, to National Post columnist Jonathan Kay for his “confession” this week that he was wrong, in every respect, to support the Iraq war. Not because he said the war was a mistake, but for doing it in a wholehearted, unmealy-mouthed, non-self-congratulatory way.
Journalists and newspapers love to occasionally acknowledge error: It reflects well on them, implies they’re right about everything they didn’t explicitly take back and, anyway, we all know it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong. But it takes a superpundit to admit he’s wrong without simultaneously implying what a big man he is for doing it.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
