Friday, May 4, 2007

Love that Elizabeth May

Boy oh boy did the Conservatives have a bad week. Their massive incompetence in Afghanistan and their lies to cover up their massive incompetence have been getting them in trouble all week. They are down 10 points in the polls with only their base left supporting them. The opposition parties and for once the press have not let this scandal die, so in an effort to change the channel Conservatives across Canada tried to manufacture their own little scandal. Last Sunday Elizabeth May delivered a sermon in a church she was invited to speak at. During that sermon Miss May quoted an environmentalist who compared the Conservative government's lack of real action to address climate change with Neville Chamberlain's infamous appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938. Tories across the country seized on this and immediately tried to turn it into a scandal. Miss May was comparing Stephen Harper to Hitler. Miss May was invoking the holocaust and using it in the context of Canadian politics. What an insult to the Jewish people and blah, blah, blah. There are only two problems with these ridicules accusations. Number one, Miss May never said a word about the holocaust. She quoted someone else who quite rightly compared Conservative inaction on climate change with English inaction on Hitler taking over his neighbor. Secondly, if it is so wrong to use the Neville Chamberlain incident to illustrate a modern point why do Conservatives do it constantly? Conservatives in Canada and the US compared people who were against the Iraq War to Neville Chamberlain. Peter McKay and Stockwell Day have both been caught by Hansard using the Chamberlain analogy in the House of Commons. Miss May pointed this one out herself on Mike Duffy yesterday. I guess Mr McKay and Mr Day have no respect for the magnitude of the holocaust either. What hypocrisy. Nice try guys but this scandal is not going away yet.

1 comment:

Luke said...

Just to clarify:

1) She did not just compare the two, she said that Stephen Harper's stance on climate change was worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis.

2) In her own clarification, she went on to quote that Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and John Howard were the new "axis of evil".

3) Since she was referencing someone else, she takes no responsibility for using the comparison to her own ends.

But you may love her if you wish. That is your right. Just like I may think she is reprehensible.