Saturday, December 30, 2006

Fisking Red Tory

I am taking a brief break from my reading to critique a recent post by Red Tory (By Request: Fisking Goldstein). According to Wikipedia, fisking is "a point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. "

Well, Red Tory may have failed on a few of those points. I'll let you decide which ones.

I do not intend to drone on point-by-point, mainly because I want to get back to Paul Wells' excellent book Right Side Up, but Red raised a few issues that need to be challenged.

First of all, RT questions Goldstein's premise that Liberals look for convenient issues to flog as a major crisis. To me, that is the essence of politics. They all do it to a certain degree. It's not necessarily a flattering attribute of the métier, but to say that the Liberal party categorically abstains from publicizing contemporary issues that may seem to play to their advantage is both ludicrous and disingenuous.


Then Red seems to be suggesting that Lorrie ignored the fact that wait times have not been reduced:

"It’s also interesting to note that during the last election Harper said his proposals and patient guarantee would stay within the budget established by the Liberals, yet he vowed to reduce wait times for medical procedures as one of his infamous “five priorities.” But uh-oh, that one seems to have quite mysteriously vanished over the course of the past year..."




But in fact, Mr. Goldstein did indeed point this out:

"Which brings us back to wait times, a problem the Liberals say Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn't doing anything about, even though it was one of his five key election promises. True."


So he did acknowledge that.



Red took exception to this statement from Lorrie's editorial:

More on that in a bit, but first, back to global warming. While the Tory government is doing nothing about it now, the Liberals did, uh, nothing, about it for 12 years. But I know global warming is important because Dion named his dog “Kyoto” and gave out green scarves at the Liberal leadership convention.


Red practically called Goldstein a liar in response:

"This is a flat-out lie... Everyone agrees that the Liberal track record on the environment has been a disappointment, but to say they did “nothing” is totally inaccurate."


Well, here's the thing, Red. Let's define what is "doing something". Is it throwing piles of money at something with no measurable results and no accountability? Is it lining Rick Mercer's pocket while we watch him drone on with his annoying diatribe about the "One Ton Challenge"? Is it talking just for the sake of appearing to be "doing something?"



In any event, perhaps Red Tory could cite evidence of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions going down during the Liberals' 12-year tenure in office? In fact, they kept going up dramatically, both before and after they signed Kyoto at almost twice the growth rate in the U.S. during the same period.



Red also seems to be hopelessly gullible when it comes to any Liberal communications. He actually believes the wait-times propaganda that spews out of Queen's Park:

"Uh, uh, since August/September 2005, wait times have decreased by: 27.7% (86 days) for cataract surgery; 19.8% (87 days) for knee replacement; 19.9% (70 days) for hip replacement; 39.3% (22 days) for angiography; 13.3% (16 days) for MRI scans; 17.9% (5 days) for angioplasty; and 2.5% (2 days) for CT scans. Nice try Lorrie."

(Uh huh. And I've got a great piece of swamp land to sell you, Red. Just let me get my pal George Smitherman to be the broker.)


At least Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter hasn't been hoodwinked. He questioned the methods used by the province to measure reductions in hospital wait times and said the statistics should be taken with a "grain of salt.''


But in any case, Red. Carry on. Never let facts get in the way of a good rant.

20 comments:

Platty said...

Better get out the thesaurus Jo, I think RT will be revvin' it up for this one.
I'm sure he will be landing on your doorstep to wish you a Happy New Year very soon.

By the way..

Happy New Year!!

Joanne (True Blue) said...

lol! Happy New Year, Platty!! Yeah, I'm shakin'in my boots here.

Red Tory said...

Is it lining Rick Mercer's pocket while we watch him drone on with his annoying diatribe about the "One Ton Challenge"?

Personally, I didn’t find those commercials to be “annoying” but a humorous and quite effective take on his familiar editorial “streeters” about various issues that he as delivered on various comedy programs. In this case it addressed what individual Canadians can do to help reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. As I pointed out in my “fisking” post, individual contributions account for approximately 25% of our GGE, so raising public awareness and encouraging people to take personal responsibility through relatively painless actions (lowering your thermostat a few degrees, keeping your tires properly inflated, using low-energy bulbs and so on) can actually have a highly significant impact when taken collectively.

I’m not going to bother with the rest because that would be a tiresome and pointless exercise. Besides, I have my elitist wine-tasting party to get to, don’t you know. I never even wanted to address this crappy little editorial of Goldstein’s in the first place and was somewhat bullied and taunted into doing so. His contention that the Liberals are “crisis junkies” is pretty absurd. Gee, what’s the latest “crisis” for the Conservatives? Gay marriage? Urban crime? Judicial activism? Liberal corruption (i.e., AdScam!)? Senate Reform? Hey, they’re “crisis junkies” too!
What silliness.

Anonymous said...

Yup. Red Tory is just blowing some hot air.

Anonymous said...

Ah Red, sweetie-" His contention that the Liberals are “crisis junkies” is pretty absurd. Gee, what’s the latest “crisis” for the Conservatives"

See Red - the Conservatives don't run around like Chicken Little throwing out "the sky will fall if you don't vote for us" statements. Of course the Liberals are "crisis junkies" - maybe not quite as bad as the dippers, but they - with their MSM friends backup - are constantly making statements about some "crisis" that is to hit Canada (or even the World) if the Conservatives continue to govern one more day.

Scary Conservatives, Scary Stephen Harper - that is the Liberal platform - has been for several years now - Why? - Because people are basically lazy and want to be taken care of so the Liberals try to portray themselves as such.

Of course they just have to say it - not do it!

What a bunch of Hooey - the only thing worse is that people like you fall for it.

You need to start to think a little for yourself instead of believing what the talking heads of the Liberal party are telling you to believe.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Alberta Girl, right on! Here's the difference - The Conservatives discuss real crises, such as the sponsorship scandal. The Liberals manufacture them with the help of MSM (Sun excepted).

gimbol said...

Come on guys, give poor red tory a break.

Can't you see he's still sore over the merger. For him it was just too much watching the majority of the membership of the old federal PC party vote in favour of the merger.
But I digress.
The liberals don't neccessarily fit the profile of your run of the mill victim industry hucksters, I do find them confused about what they actually stand for.
This annoying trait is best displayed by the likes of Joe Clark and Scott Brison ad how they fit in very well with Bob Rae, Buzz Hargrove and Belinda Stronach.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Come on guys, give poor red tory a break.

I am disappointed by Red's lack of substantive response. There are no knives sticking in my back. Clearly the man has lost his mojo.

Anonymous said...

Nah Joanne - he is a typical anti-conservative - all bluster and no substance. It is pretty easy to throw stones then run away. He is into the name calling and smearing that has become typical of those who HATE the fact that the CPC won the last election and HATE even more, the fact that the CPC are actually getting things done.

So they invent "crisis" and "conspiracies" and play "gotcha" because they really can't debate how well the CPC have done in the short time they have been in power.

Get ready for more of the same as the big Red machine starts rolling towards trying to take back power.

Red Tory said...

I must say that your paranoiac little circle jerk is highly amusing.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

lol! So were you the bully that "forced" RT to do his pathetic fisk about Goldstein, Vicki?

Red Tory said...

Gee, Vicki I was going to post a comment over at your blog, but I see it hasn't been updated since April of 2006 so I guess there's little point. Seems you're too busy nattering away with your back-slapping buddies. But do keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

HA.....and HA again!

Nice touch Jo.....won't make Red pause for a nano-second but still A for effort!!
Cheers......till next year :)

Anonymous said...

Red should be basking in the glory of having been "recognized" by his fellow Lib-Blogger, Jason Cherniak, as one of his top 10 favorite bloggers of 2006. Of course, being recognized by Jason is kind of like winning a medal at the Special Olympics...

Joanne (True Blue) said...

Of course, being recognized by Jason is kind of like winning a medal at the Special Olympics...

Ouch! Is that 'politically correct'?

Made me laugh, though!!

Anonymous said...

"lol! So were you the bully that "forced" RT to do his pathetic fisk about Goldstein, Vicki? "

I think it may have been me...I asked him to get dirty and debate goldstein's column instead of attacking DBT and vicky and silly peripheral issues.

I give him kudos for doing it...ultimately it was rather lacking, especially the little rant at the end where all he could do was insult conservatives.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

I think it may have been me...I asked him to get dirty and debate goldstein's column instead of attacking DBT and vicky and silly peripheral issues.

Ah-ha! So would that have been at DBT's site? I must investigate.

Yes, I give him kudos for taking the challenge, although it's the first time I've seen him feel "forced" to do anything. His heart wasn't in it, that's for sure. He did it like a schoolboy sent to write an essay that he didn't particularly care about.

Anonymous said...

I'm not always politically correct, Jo. It's part of my charm.

Joanne (True Blue) said...

That's why I love ya, Mac!

Anonymous said...

RT is first clas jackass.