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Ted Morton?
11/27/06
Ted Morton?
Has the Calgary Sun become less conservative over time, or is Ted Morton really that spookily right-wing a character?
Dining on fabulous nosh at Willy's (and strangely, finding the owners had used turkey bacon as a substitute for bacon), I opened up the Calgary Sun and caught news of the leadership race of the Progressive Conservatives in Alberta. Now, the Calgary Sun has always been slightly right-wing, as far back as I can remember. If you take a look at their new "Words of Faith" page, it includes such not-usually-liberal luminaries as James Dobson and Billy Graham.
Yet they had an article which described Morton as a candidate who would steer the party to the right, and portraying it as a very bad thing.
Indeed, Bill 208 is one of those odd pieces of legislation he sponsored. Not against same-sex marriage per se, but definitely an anti-same-sex marriage sentiment. It would have allowed clergy not to perform such marriages (was that necessary?) as well as marriage commissioners (which is a bit odd), as well as letting kids skip the part of the class where they cover same-sex marriage (what curriculum is that part of?)
From his brochure:
Protecting Human Rights
Ted Morton’s record on human rights is strong. His Bill 208 would defend freedoms of religion and speech for those who support traditional marriage and a parent’s right to determine a child’s education.
His courageous stand comes in the face of heavy criticism and attacks from those who think new found access to same-sex marriage trumps everything else.
It's doublespeak like that which has me particularly worried, especially since, by all accounts, Bill 208 was a solution in search of a problem.
Morton is a member of the so-called Calgary School, which in some ways imports U.S.-side neo-conservatism here, though with a less onerous public face. Perhaps with a less onerous private one, but it's hard to say. He's not bringing up abortion as an election issue, but pre-election and post-election issues can be very different things, especially with voter-savvy true believers.
It's almost enough for me to go buy a party membership and vote. Maybe it is enough. Party memberships are $5 and as far as I've been able to tell, I can hold multiple party memberships.
If you want to find out where the nearest polling station is, look here.
8 comments
Submitted with no further comment:
POGGe on the Canadian Neocons
So, over at Red State Rabble you say its a good thing Irag didn’t go better, otherwise it would have helped the Republicans!
In other words, American defeat is good as long as it hurts Bush!
You insane weasel.
You don’t thing the Iraqi people would have been better off, at least if things had gone better?
Who cares, that would have helped the REpublicans.
People like you can not be trusted.
*laugh* I’m going to publish ol’ Emmanuel’s comment.
Here, poor Adam, is the part of the comment that got him all in a huff:
It is disturbing in a way to think what would have happened if the Iraq war had gone just a little bit better. That would have been just enough for a Republican majority again (the mind always boggles as to why it was even so well-represented this time around).
I’ve noticed time and time again a standard approach to removing all mitigating qualifiers from a statement, in this case, “a little bit".
In the Slate article that the blog entry refers to, which is unapologetically filled to the hilt with Godwin, there’s a lament that the reason the Republicans lost seats was not because what they did in shifting the war unjustly to a non-participant, or because he was eroding personal freedoms, but because we appeared to be losing in Iraq:
If the midterm election was a referendum on nothing more than Bush’s competence, then the message the Republicans have gotten is: Next time, make it work.
The consequences of a little bit better in Iraq, the subtlety which our 1984 character missed, would be a Republican majority, and an even more protracted non-victory in Iraq. They should have gone in with sufficient forces and a post-war civil plan, not Wolfowitz’s assurances that such would not be necessary, if they were to go in at all. Right now, they need some damned strategy, else they’re choosing that bane of all project managers, the Death March.
Lawmaking for the “war on terrorism” does not really affect overseas tactics. The “hurting Bush” part of this is only related to this particular part. Much incremental restrictions and acclimatization to barbarism has been done in the US itself. That was a topic well-explored in the article and, of course, where the Godwinning came from.
It looks like they’re staying the course, regardless. It doesn’t look like the British troops are totally withdrawing; they’re keeping a supporting force. So what’s their plan?
…and yes, Adam, I am always reminded of the poster adapted for Fark:
Admittedly we’re now waaay off the Ted Morton discussion, but one thing you said did grab my interest (in particular):
but because we appeared to be losing in Iraq
I’m not sure if that’s a direct quote of the Slate article or not, but the utter foul-up in Iraq is not a Canadian issue (thank miscellaneous fictional deities.) I truly hope that our new Conservative Overlords don’t make it one.
That should have been a “they". My bad; it wasn’t a direct quote.
I hope they don’t as well. The increased militarization and the social program cuts have been noticed already. I’m a little disturbed at the elimination of the Court Challenges Program that helps people with few resources fight laws that violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We really did have to oust the stagnant Liberals from the top of the heap in Ottawa, but Harper bears close scrutiny, like I think a lot of us knew he would.
You can see the debate on Bill 208 in the legislative assembly here: 20060501_1330_01_han.pdf
It starts on about page 18.
Thanks for the link. He’s a bit of a mystery to most people, it seems.
I guess we will in some ways just have to wait until we start seeing the first few headlines in the papers, or remember that we wanted to know about Stelmach at or later than the date that Google finally indexes somebody’s really in-depth coverage of the man :)
I wonder a little whether the PC party might lose a few seats over time. It usually takes something pretty stupid for Albertans to turn out in force to oust a party, though.
