October 14, 2002
A column by Susan Delacourt, entitled, "The many ways Manley could have said nothing" appeared in the National Post on October 8. The article concerns John Manley’s answer to a question about the monarchy in which he publicly stated his anti-monarchist views within an hour of Queen Elizabeth II landing in Canada. Although Manley’s views are well known and no one is really disputing the Deputy Prime Minister’s right to express these views, Manley was severely criticized for the timing of his comments, rudeness being an oft employed word to describe his actions.
Delacourt’s article consists primarily of interviews with politicians such as Herb Gray, Andy Scott and Stan Keyes, wherein the politicos give tips on how not to answer questions. Delacourt states in her column "If John Manley, the Deputy Prime Minister, wants to develop his skills in avoiding tricky media questions, he need not look far for expert advice". The problem with the column is that it is premised upon Manley’s assertion that the reason for the stir that was caused was that he lacked the proper skills in refusing to answer a question.
Does anyone who has ever watched Manley perform during Question Period, actually think that he is not a skillful politician? One of his duties as deputy prime minister is to answer questions when Jean Chrétien is not in the House. He’s lasted a lot longer than the five minutes he would have lasted, had he not been able to protect the boss by deflecting opposition questions. Manley lacks the experience of a Herb Gray, but he gets the job done.
When the "I just didn’t know how to answer the question" line didn’t work, the Deputy Prime Minister was forced to apologize for the timing of his statements. In an attempt to minimize the damage caused by his statements, Manley’s lack of skill with the media was simply spin. And Delacourt, rather than reporting news, was simply spinning for him.
No wonder he did it--his father's a Jamaican criminal
John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, was sentenced to 20 years on the same day that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, pleaded guilty in Boston for attempting to blow up a Paris to Miami flight last December 22. The next day, articles about Lindh and Reid were placed side by side in the National Post. Although the articles were from different sources (the Lindh story was a Reuters article while the Reid piece was from the Daily Telegraph), the Reid article delved into the shoe bomber’s background. It stated "The would-be shoe bomber was born in southeast London, the son of a Jamaican father who spent much of his life in jail, and an English mother."
Since Jamaica has never been known as a hotbed of Muslim extremism, what possible relevance is it that his father was born in that country? And since a criminal past does not seem to be a requirement of an al Qaeda terrorist, what is the relevance of the fact that his father spent a lot of time in jail? This is stereotyping at its worst and does nothing to shed light on how Reid came to hold his radical views.
On the other hand, the media tend to shy away from Walker Lindh’s background. He was raised in liberal Marin County, California, by a mother who renounced her Catholicism and became a Buddist, and by a father who left his wife when he discovered he was gay. Walker Lindh went to an alternative school and his parents supported his plans to study Islam in the Middle East. Walker Lindh’s background is probably more relevant as to why he became an extremist than Reid’s Jamaican father is. Perhaps the background of the Lindh family, unlike that of a Jamaican criminal, hit a little too close to home for the media.
Arthur Weinreb is a lawyer and author and Associate Editor of Canadafreepress.com
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