The Problem for the BC NDP: Way Too Much Hate

This morning there was a fascinating analysis of the recent BC election. You can hear it by clicking here and tuning to 37:00. Here's the first part of the discussion:

Bill Good: "Vaughn, we had an election on Tuesday. Not much has changed. The Liberals still govern. The NDP is probably trying to figure out what it has to do to remake itself. Your thoughts following the election?"

Vaughn Palmer: "Yeah, it was a status quo outcome with almost exactly the same gap in the popular vote as in 2005: 4 points. Almost exactly the same gap in the number of seats in the House: 13. Very few seats actually changed hands. The two parties sort of emerged from the election where they were going into it. And yeah the challenge for the New Democrats is - 42% is a pretty good showing in the popular vote - in tough economic times when people weren't inclined to change government, but what do you do? How do you get that last bit of the gap closed to form government or do you say, 'Well, we're going to be in opposition forever' ?"

Bill Good: "Keith, Philip asked this morning, 'Is the problem the horse or the jockey?' and I think that's a very good question. I think the horse is tired."

Keith Baldrey: "It is tired. The NDP, I think, has some fundamental problems and challenges. It's not fair at all to blame Carole James for this situation. A senior NDP strategist once told me some time ago, 'It's easy for us to get to 40 points in the public opinion arena. For us to grow after that is hard slogging.' Every vote after they hit that peak of 40% is tough for the NDP to pick up because then they're going after mainstream, middle of the road voters who can be turned off pretty quick by anything that smacks of idealogy, that smacks of something they're not comfortable with. And that's where I think the NDP hit a bump in this particular election campaign. Their relentless negative portrayal of Gordon Campbell, their advertising, I think was a turnoff to the key rump of voters that they needed to attract. I mean, that plays well to people who are going to vote NDP anyway, who hate Gordon Campbell, who hate the Liberals and would never vote for them at all. But when you're trying to attract people who are either undecided, maybe leaning one way or another, that is not the way to attract those voters. So Carole James certainly has responsibility for this outcome but there are a lot of people in the NDP camp who I think have to be held accountable here and I think are going to brought on the carpet presumably by other people in the party for making some pretty bad calls early on."

Bill Good: "Vaughn, the NDP focused on the carbon tax, run-of-river projects, privatization. Did they miss the mark about what the public was really concerned about?"

Vaughn Palmer: "Well, I think the comment many have made is that they were all over the map. They came with a scattershot series. They went after Kinsella for a few days, they went after the carbon tax and then dropped that. They went after run-of-river power. Someone worked out that they had 4 different slogans for the campaign. So there was a lack of focus. But I think Carole James pulled it out for them. With that performance in the debate and a strong finish, they really are in a dilemma. Their problem is, if they go to a 3rd election with the same leader - the last time they did that they lost 3 in a row: Dave Barrett. On the other hand, she did pull it out for them. She deserves a decent interval to think about her own future. But the other thing I think they've got to do - this other thing that Keith just referred to, this relentless negativeness - look, it pains New Democrats to admit it but the most successful politician in modern times in British Columbia is named Gordon Campbell."

Bill Good: "Yes, he's lost one election in 25 years and he lost that by a whisker."

Vaughn Palmer: "Yes, he's won 9 elections! They loathe him. They pander to the people who hate him. They think it's hilarious to run an ad showing him as a drunk. I've been hearing people from the election, 'The media let him off the hook for his drinking & driving'." Face it folks, this guy is your adversary, he's more successful in politics than you are so how do you beat him?"

Keith Baldrey: "Yeah, the NDP, by focusing on Campbell actually helped solidify the Liberals main strength, which is Gordon Campbell."

Bill Good: "Well you know, I thought the most interesting thing, or certainly one of them in the election, and I certainly didn't expect it, he was front and centre in every ad, he was on the posters, they didn't try to hide him. The NDP hid Carole James. She did a really good job, I agree with you, on the radio debate, on the television debate - whenever she was seen - but she was not seen in their advertising, she was not seen in their posters. Gordon Campbell they turned what many would have thought to be a negative into a positive and he was the centrepiece of the campaign. And they won!"

Keith Baldrey: "That wasn't Carole James' idea. This was the brains of the NDP campaign."

Bill Good: "So called."

Keith Baldrey: "[The NDP 'Brains'] who thought they'd come up with a winning strategy. So it's not Carole James. The NDP's campaign missed the mark on so many points and one of the strengths of the NDP is Carole James' positiveness, her warm demeanor, her personality, and they completely sheltered that and kept it from the public and focused entirely on Gordon Campbell. And again, one of the Ipsos-Reid polls before the election found that when it came to Liberal supporters and people who might be considering voting Liberal, Gordon Campbell was a strength for them. So by emphasizing Gordon Campbell I think just simply played into the Liberals hands of focusing on their best asset. NDP'ers are never going to vote for Gordon Campbell but that soft middle ground, they will vote for Gordon Campbell and they did this time."

Bill Good: "So Vaughn, how does the NDP grow? Or is it another party that comes along and says 'we're going to be centre left, we're going to be friendly to small business, we are going to somehow try to attract people who might not be onside with the Liberals but we're tired of the negativity of the NDP' ?"

Vaughn Palmer: "Well, I think they should - a question that arose, that Norman Spector actually raised when I talked to him on the TV show last night was, 'Do New Democrats ever talk up their own leader? Do they really go out there and say, here's what our leader's done for us and here's what's really worked?' They don't take pride in the fact, I don't think, not enough of it, that she's moderated their economic message. On the contrary, they gave her a platform that made it sound more left-wing than she is. She went around for 4 years, giving speeches to the business community, talking about growth, investment, how the NDP made mistakes in the 1990's and the New Democrats never talked that up. You get a New Democrat going and they'll tell you 'oh no, the 90's were great, there were no economic problems, it's all the media'. I think part of the problem is that they have to resolve among themselves to unite behind their leader and let her move them a little closer to the middle. They don't have to move very far, you know. The gap isn't huge between these two parties. It's like 4 points. Keith's right, it takes a bit of effort to get to the middle. The problem in the NDP you've got is that there's a bunch of people in the NDP that think the solution is to move left."

Keith Baldrey: "Yes, that's the problem. There's the class warfare element of the NDP who think that's how to win power in this province because they did it once in '96, where the vote was split big time, where the Reform Party was able to get 9 points. That's a lot of voters and that's what gave Glen Clark the election. It wasn't his assault on banks. But there are class warfare advocates in the NDP who think, 'If we just move hard left then we'll win' but that's just not enough voters."

Vaughn Palmer: "These people are crackpots. Here's their strategy summarized: 'We're going to move to the left and we're going to win - we're going to get our people really happy - we're going to win an election with 39 or 40% of the vote. How we're going to do that? Well, you know what we're going to do, we're going to talk up the Conservative Party because the Conservative Party will split the Liberals and then we get to split the vote in British Columbia and we'll win with 39%. This is a crackpot idea! It depends on the Conservative Party. Look what the Conservative Party did in the election: they took 20% of the vote in one riding, they took 17, 16 - they took a big chunk of the vote - they split the opposition vote. The Liberals won ever riding where the Conservatives did well. James should put the people that make those arguments on Call Block at party headquarters!"

Anti-Jewish Hatred Flourishing Amongst Canada's "Progressives"

It has gotten so bad in the Liberal blogosphere that several prominent Canadian Liberal bloggers have realized that damage is now occurring to the Liberal Party brand. They are in full damage control, posting items such as these (click on the images to read) :


Make no mistake, I do feel sorry for the likes of fellows like Jason Cherniak and Jeff Jedras. But unfortunately they belong to a party that has more than a few Radical Left thugs within, some of whom will not be satisfied until Israel no longer exists. Do you realize how incredibly sick this is? It is pretty much on the same wavelength of the mentality of the Germans during World War 2.

The Conservatives once had a problem with Fundamentalist Christians "ruling the roost", so to speak. But Harper, to his credit, has greatly moderated the party. So will the Liberals, though if the volume of anti-Jewish comments is any barometer, then they have a LONG way to go. Fortunately for these spewers of hate, no conservative will give legitimacy to the Kangaroos Courts aka the "Human Rights" Commissions. The fact is, one Quebec blogger did, purely as a test, and discovered that hatred towards Jews and Christians is perfectly fine to the "progressive" thinkers behind the thrones of the HRCs.

Is this the Modern Canada that Pierre Trudeau had in mind?

Secular "Progressives" Attack Christianity ... Again!

The Radical Left in Washington State are mocking Christianity, fully sanctioned by the Governor of the state:

And at least one Canadian is just lovin' it! Note: He's a supporter of the Coalition. Oh there's a surprise. Sigh.

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To show Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire the same respect she is showing Christians, I would hereby like to nominate her & George Costanza as two permanent saints of Washington State's Festivus:

The Last Rae Day

Here's an excellent follow-up of what has been happening with the Liberal Party of late.

Bob Rae: Hypocrisy's Poster Boy

Here's an hilarious article by Ezra Levant detailing Bob Rae's sudden about face with regard to democracy.

Never before in recent Canadian history has there been a more apropos poster boy for Hypocrisy than Bob Rae. He completely sold out any principles he once might have had in order to acquire power. But then when the furniture on the sinking ship shifted around and *HE* was in danger of being pushed off, suddenly he saw everything in a new light!

The irony of this is beautiful!

Dealing with 4 Year-Olds

Laugh of the Day: Put yourself into the mind of New Brunswick Liberal.

• "If looks could kill and people could really stare daggers I would have been killed at least a dozen times over."
  
  
• "Despite being a Canadian (it says so on my passport), I was not welcome at the so-called 'Rally for Canada'...I was told to leave several times."
  
  
• "The conservatives have no intelligent response to the proposed Liberal/NDP/Bloc coalition, preferring to respond by way of rhetoric and hyperbole"
  

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My Question: Do pro-Coalition supporters mostly consist of 4 year-old boys? Seriously, do they???

A Paraphrased Facsimile: "Mommy, Mommy, that Conservative, he, he looked at me and his eyes were like lasers and if I didn't jump out of the way then I would have died, or been really, really hurt. Then he took his toque off and all kinds of Tribbles started coming out of the top of his head - hundreds & millions of them. They pushed me into a corner and started trying to squish me. But I quickly blew a big bubble with the gum I had and it floated me away until I could safely land back in Kumbaya-Land with you, Mommy. Could you please call Uncle Stephane and get him to tell that mean Conservative not to hate me?"

Illegal Immigrants a Problem in Canada!

Sent from an American friend:

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada
has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols
to stop the illegal immigration. The possibility of a McCain/Palin
election is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear
they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of
sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing
their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and
there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba
farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. "The
producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. He asked me if I could spare
a latte and some free-range chicken." In an effort to stop the illegal
aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled
them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across
the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got
through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals
near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive
them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot
of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario
border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking
water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often
wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors
have been circulating about the McCain-Palin administration establishing
re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves
from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for
the Rapture.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of
crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on
bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a
half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian
immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed
senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to
prove they were alive in the '50s. "If they can't identify the
accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about
their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are
creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan
Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian
economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many
Art history and English majors does one country need?"

Mr. Christy Clark is Depressed

Mark Marissen (aka Christy Clark's husband) is a long time Liberal Party operative. Some people refer to him as a political genius. I beg to differ. If stacking nomination races with thousands of last minute sign-ups from one ethnic group - individuals who don't know a thing about the details of the candidate - is genius then so be it. I consider such actions to be a thug like attempt to thwart democracy.

As Miro Cernetig elaborates, Mr. Christy Clark is now depressed. It's so sad.

Location of the next Liberal Convention

Stephane Dion resigned today, effective as soon as his party selects a new leader.

This evening I heard something very interesting about this upcoming leadership convention. Apparently it's slated to be out here in Vancouver next May. But the Liberal party is broke, to the tune of $6 Million. And with most of their support in Toronto, it makes absolutely no financial sense to fly everyone out to the Left Coast and stay in those expensive Vancouver hotel rooms.

So stay tuned for a switch of venues to The Big Smoke to be announced not too far into the new year ... likely on a Friday afternoon just before a Monday holiday!

How times have changed, eh? For decades we were told that the Liberals were the Natural Governing Party of the People of Canada. In fact, they were the natural favour getting party of about 200 wealthy Canadians. Period.

How the Radical Left Views Crime

We already know that Obama's strongest supporters, the Radical Left-Wing of the Democrat Party feel that:

• Extreme media bias is perfectly fine.
• Singers replacing the American National Anthem with the "black national anthem", without any approval is perfectly fine.
  
• Photographers betraying the trust of their clients and distorting the faces of Republicans is perfectly fine.

Today we learn that they also applaud the actions* of computer hackers committing federal crimes. As of the time of this posting, the Obama campaign has not yet uttered one word about these horrific actions, even though the group claiming responsibility fully admitted that they did it for Obama. All such actions are further defended here. And through it all so-called "moderate progressives" either say nothing or find convoluted ways to defend these actions as well.

When right & wrong is determined simply by one's political objectives then we have truly have reached a society resembling Lord of the Flies. Now that's Change You Can Count On!

* - I have stored a copy of this DailyKos web page in case it is taken down, like similar pages on the site have already today. Please let me know and I'll link to the snapshot I have safely stored.

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Update #1:

Here's a detailed account from one of Michelle Malkin's readers of what may have happened.

And here is a DISGUSTING story from two Washington Post writers. Even when a crime occurs against this woman, they still turn the story into a hit piece! These are the same sort of repugnant knuckle draggers who ask how a woman was dressed after she is raped. Different levels of crime but EXACTLY the same disease of moral relativism.

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Update #2:
Some in the tech community are already trying to help the Secret Service track down the hacker. These trying to help may indeed be Obama supporters but unlike those members of the Radical Left they are professionals and don't have a moral equivalency when it comes to crime. Kudos to them!

A Radical Liberal's Sense of Humor

Speculate no further about what constitutes an extreme liberal's sense of humor:

What is one supposed to say to this other than Sicker Than Sick!

If you'd like to see another example of what another radical liberal considers funny then click here.

Thomas Sowell: The Vision of the Left

"Conservatives, as well as liberals, would undoubtedly be happier living in the kind of world envisioned by the left."

So begins a brilliant new editorial from Thomas Sowell. A must read!

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Note: Do contrast Sowell's words with those of Judith Warner. Striking.

Judith Warner: Typical Liberal Elitist?

I came across this critique of a New York Times blogger named Judith Warner. I'd never heard of her before and decided to check out her blog and read a few of her postings. Her writing seems very disjointed but I stuck with it.

Her September 4th posting seems very passive-aggressive, somewhat akin to the now infamous hate piece of CBC "journalist", Heather Mallick.

Her tone seemed to change dramatically in her September 11th posting. At least I *think* it did. Read at face value, it sounded like she came to a McCain-Palin rally mostly to mock Republicans but perhaps walked away with a bit more humility. In the process she offered up some gems that might baffle even Woody Allen's therapist:

We talked about the moral vacuity of modern parenting. “I see extreme spoiling, self-absorption,” she said. “Constant bringing the kids up to love themselves without reflecting on how they affect others.” We talked about the disastrous lack of respect that children now show adults and institutions, and about the ways this lack of respect translates into a very ugly sort of lack of decorum and a lack of basic manners: “This 10-year-old, my daughter’s friend, she comes over and throws down a magazine with John McCain on the cover. ‘Here’s friggin John McCain,’ she says. ‘Let’s see what lies he’s going to tell now.’” She continued: “These 10-year-olds think they’re better than me. That they don’t have to say hello. That they think I’m beneath them.”

"You go girl", I was thinking, in so many words, until the talk turned back to politics: “So often these kids that are so incredibly full of themselves, I find their parents are Democrats. The Democrats, they hate ‘us,’ the United States, but they love ‘me,’ that is, themselves,” she said.

I heard a lot more talk that day about the need for respect – and about arrogance and selfishness and about Democrats and liberals who think way too highly of themselves.

Is this news to anyone? Is there any adult in North America who doesn't think many children are overindulged these days? Was this the first time Judith Warner had ever heard such things? Was it also the first time she had ever heard that most average people think extreme liberals are arrogant and selfish?

She eventually continued on with this:

No, it wasn’t funny, my morning with the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played. It was sobering. It was serious. It was an education.
Once again, taken at face value, it sounds like this is the first time she had ever encountered such women. How is that possible? Is this a crystal clear example of the great political divide in North America today?

She continues:

“Palin Power” isn’t just about making hockey moms feel important. It’s not just about giving abortion rights opponents their due. It’s also, in obscure ways, about making yearnings come true — deep, inchoate desires about respect and service, hierarchy and family that have somehow been successfully projected onto the figure of this unlikely woman and have stuck.

For those of us who can’t tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind – to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses, to the contradictions between her ideology and their interests.
Remove the "Palin" bits and a puzzle floats to the surface: Why can't Warner "tap into" yearnings like respect, service, hierarchy, and family? Are these things really unimportant to most liberals?

Furthermore, how can anyone accept this as true - "it seems the Palin faithful are blind – to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses" - and support Barack Obama without being a complete hypocrite?

She concludes her posting with this:

[Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist], has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

Perhaps that’s why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals’ skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.

Ms. Warner, let the truth set you free!

Be sure to check out the comments to her posting. The first few are priceless.

Fund Raising Initiative for Daily Kos Readers!

Here's a snippet of an absolutely hilarious posting:

So, if you haven't been following the crazies at Kos, here's basically what they've been saying about Palin:

Palin faked that she was pregnant with Trig to cover up that her daughter Bristrol was actually pregnant. When the baby was born and they found out he was black, so she bleached his skin to further conceal the truth. When nosy reporters got close to her secret, she killed a hobo, put the corpse in a gorilla suit, and froze it to claim she had bigfoot and cause a big media distraction. The hobo had hobo friends, though, and they started asking questions, so Palin had to murder them too and bury them in the middle of nowhere. But then there was a proposal to build a bridge to nowhere so she had to oppose that to keep people away from her secret. Then she still wasn't able to conceal the truth, so she forced Bristol to get pregnant again and changed the medical records so that it looked like Bristol was pregnant when Trig was born so Trig couldn't be hers. Finally, she joined a radical Alaskan separatist group to prepare to secede Alaska from America to join with Russia and wipe out the U.S. to fully conceal the truth.

You can read the full piece here. Do help the cause out. Remember, there are poor Americans out there living each day without a helmet! If you care, please donate whatever you can.

Sincere Kudos to Barack Obama

Barack Obama has done the right thing and demanded that his supporters absolutely cut out the personal attacks on the children of his opponents. You can read more here. I congratulate and commend him for this.

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I was curious about how widespread the attacks were so I went to Google Blog Search and performed this search. To some of these liberal "brown shirts" I posted some variation of the following:

Yes, there's definitely some hypocrisy here but you need to get a mirror to see it.

Put yourself in Sarah Palin's shoes. You strongly advocate abstinence to your children. One of your daughters chooses to not listen to you and gets pregnant. What do you then? If you're true to your (Palin's) convictions then you would encourage her to have the baby. And that's what she's doing and getting married to the father as well.

As for the hypocrisy I mentioned earlier, I trust you're aware that Barack Obama was born to an 18 year-old mother who was not married to the father at the time.

Final question: You seem to have no hesitation to delve into the lives of Sarah Palin's children. Should we thus assume that you're advocating open attacks into Barack & Michele's two adorable daughters? Sure sounds like. That's pretty sick.

Don't know if you've seen the latest news, but even Obama says that you & your ilk are slimeballs: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/obama-to-media.html

Good on him! If you actually worked for the campaign you'd now be out of a job!

The Palin Pregnancy

It was announced today that Sarah Palin's 17 year-old daughter, Bristol, is 5 months pregnant. She plans to marry the father and have the baby. Not a whole lot different than several young actresses who followed the same path earlier this year. Yet while the latter were celebrated we all know that our "lovely" liberals out there will try to condemn Ms. Palin and her mother. Just watch. I predict that such attacks will only go to further dig a deeper & deeper hole underneath of Obama's campaign.

Incidentally, more level headed folks at the Daily Kos are now trying to correct the smear started there on Saturday. Read through this blog entry and the comments. There's talk of a "fake pregnancy suit" and a staged interview. The American people must be so proud to have such conspiracy nutters in their midst - not!

"Progressives" : New Age Fascists Like No Other

If you'd like to see what kind of people will be voting for Barack Obama this fall then click here. Indeed, not all voting for him are like these thugs but way too many are. And read through the hundreds of comments and you will see few to no liberals chastising their comrades for their reprehensible actions.

Such actions are further support of Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism. And further proof of how real free speech and real discussions are squashed by liberals who disagree with it. Absolutely pathetic!

It would be most interesting to find out if any of these thugs are also working on Obama's campaign. Far fetched? Something tells me not!

Omar Khadr - Future Liberal MP!

July 1, 2013 - Toronto - After a disastrous defeat by the Conservatives in 2009, the reconstituted Liberal Party of Canada, announced it newest candidate today. Omar Khadr, once an alleged al Qaeda terrorist and Guantanomo Bay prisoner, announced his candidacy today in the riding of Toronto-Danforth.

Liberal leader Bob Rae started the press conference by introducing Khadr: "Once an innocent child, illegally incarcerated by the American government, Omar has fought a righteous campaign in support of human rights for all ethnicities. Five years ago, when I was instrumental in freeing him, I must confess that I didn't know him very well. But having spent much time with him and his family ever since, I am now proud to call Omar a key member of the Rainbow Coalition that is the new Liberal Party of Canada."

Shoddy Journalism or Just Institutional Bias?

A friend of mine recently remarked that I often talk about the severe left-wing bias of much of the media in Canada but don't provide enough examples. Here's one, an extremely distorted account of what occurred this past week written by the Toronto Star's Petti Fong. Here's her opening paragraph, that sets the tone for the rest of her editorial news article:

A high-profile B.C. Human Rights Tribunal heard yesterday that an article published in Maclean's magazine drew responses from readers that called for the mass killing, deportation and forced conversion of Muslims.

Really? Strange that she failed to mention that such comments were actually posted on Internet websites, most, if not all of which operate outside of Canada. And whether there's a direct correlation between Mark Steyn's article and these responses is very questionable and was definitely never proved during the proceedings. Fong knows this.

But she never lets the full set of facts get in the way of her agenda reporting. For example, further on she writes:

The tribunal was called after two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress – president Mohamed Elmasry and Dr. Naiyer Habib – complained, saying the article promotes hatred against Islam and incites fears Muslims are taking over the world by criminalizing the religion and its followers.

Dr. Habib, a B.C. cardiologist, testified that a handful of Muslims hold extremist views. He said he was ashamed to see Islam demonized in that way.

Really? Strange that she failed to mention that Dr. Habib's co-complainant, Mohamed Elmasry, has publicly stated that "any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack." A reader not so familiar with the case would think that both complainants are purely innocent victims. That's not really the case with Elmasry, is it?

A bit later Fong illuminates us with this:

During the week, while Steyn supporters continued appearing in the public gallery, a growing number of Muslim Canadians also began attending to show their concerns about what they consider is a growing hatred for their religion.

Surrey resident Lazina Yasir said she thought it was important to hear what was being said. She began weeping quietly in the public gallery when the lawyer for the CIC read some of the blog responses to the article, such as one writer calling for the use of DDT to eradicate Muslims, while others suggested throwing the Qur'an in the mud and "pissing on Muslims."

This is an example of "fair and balanced"? On the one hand we have supporters in league with that terrible white guy Steyn (my words, not Fong's) and on the other we have a poor Muslim woman "weeping quietly". Give me a break!

Why didn't Fong seek out the countless Muslims we've heard on the other side of the fence, who are deeply embarrassed that a small number of their own faith are trying to trample on Free Speech? For example, I'm sure that Tarek Fatah would have been more than wiling to talk with her. But his views don't fit in with her narrative reporting so he was excluded.

Soon after, we read this:

Yasir's husband, Areeb, said he doesn't see the issue as one strictly about free speech. "There's never been any question in our mind that we need to have both free speech and a free media," he said. "But even here at this hearing, we are encountering people who don't want to acknowledge that some people may not see things the way they see it, when it comes to religion."

And your point is, sir? From her perspective, the purpose of Fong's inclusion of this quotation is clear, trying to emphasize the alleged close-mindedness of those "people" the gentleman was referring to but the deep irony of his words in relation to free speech undoubtedly sailed well over Ms. Fong's head.

A Sampling of Modern Liberals

Here's a "fascinating" post I found about our recent Kangaroo Court. It's published on "The Daily Kos", one of the most prominent Left-Wing American websites. The original article itself is fair and fairly well balanced. The author and I would probably be diametrically opposed on most every issue but at least s/he saw the travesty of justice that occurred here this past week.

But then open up the comments. There you'll see what I perceive to be a mixture of American and Canadian commenters. Almost surely all devout liberals; it's sort of a prerequesite for that site. And most of them make excuse after excuse about why the BCHRT is justified in doing whatever they damn well please. To these people, free speech is a relative concept. It's like those people who describe themselves as "very open minded". What that really means is that they're "open minded if you agree with them but close minded like a steel trap if you don't".

The good news for them is that if & when the 3 commissars of the BCHRT from this past week get fired, any of these folks would be just "perfect" candidates to replace them.