Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Spun Around So Much I'm Totally Burned Out

As compared with earlier versions of myself (as in “Campus Lise” compared to my current “Money-is-my-crack-and-gets-me-to-work-each-morning Lise”), I watch, listen and read a lot less news than I used to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still more of a news junkie than most, but lately I’ve been feeling really burned out.

Like this morning Andy is interviewing the Liberal’s Ontario Caucus Chair about this new “Ontario wants in” theme being floated about, mostly by McGuinty. He asks, and I’m paraphrasing here, “What will the Federal Budget do for Ontario?” and she goes on and on about how Ontario is an important part of confederation, about how when Newfoundland succeeds, we all succeed, blah, blah, blah…

Now you understand I’m not talking about content here, but why doesn’t she just say “Listen, you guys have it so much better than anyone else, you should stop whining”, or “McGuinty needs something new to deflect criticism, ask him?” or even “Martin has his own agenda to push and I am his puppet”?

Okay, so I know why she doesn’t just say that, but I just feel so frustrated that no one says what they mean anymore. Because they’re afraid of what you might think. Because they’re afraid you won’t like them anymore (read: vote for them). I realize there’s a large balancing act going on here, but I feel like they just think we’re all idiots.

Remember when Kim Campbell said something about how an election is not the time to debate complex issues? Okay, so I think she may be wrong (or maybe not), but at least she didn’t bullshit us. Of course, then, she made fun of a guy with a disability.

I kinda wish Ralph Goodale would stand up this afternoon and say, “I will now read a list of frivolous items that we have agreed to spend billions on to keep the backbenchers happy and to get enough opposition support for the budget so the government doesn’t fall because we like power and having nice pensions to look forward to.” Maybe that's not even bad motivation. But at least it's closer to the truth.

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