By Beryl Wajsman
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
It takes passion and ego to be a political leader. They are not necessarily bad things. Sadly, the virus of political correctness that has infected Canada's national mindset over the past decade has made us forget this. That virus has paralyzed Canadians into a mindless, sclerotic and feckless obedience to governments that stagger drunkenly from wrong to wrong in order to preserve their own immortality.
I did not agree with all of Prime Minister Mulroney's policies nor do I agree with all of his characterizations. But he wasn't far wrong on most of it. More importantly, here stands a man. In full candor and clarity.
How refreshing to read words not massaged by the results of polls and focus groups. and maybe, just maybe, these stark revelations will rouse some Canadians out of their lethargic apathy they can't even recognize because they've been sitting on it for so long and give them the bluster and boldness to demand of our leaders actions reflective of the proud legacy of this great land and not just the tinkering of statocratic engineers.
The fault in this episode lies not with Mulroney but with Newman. Many political historians and biographers have been granted access to the private thoughts of public men. But from James MacGregor Burns on down they have been careful to tone them down and use them as texture and tenor for the tableaux they wrote. Newman exploited them in a manner befitting yellow journalism at a time when he knew Mr. Mulroney was not physically up to the challenge of fighting back. Newman had 20 years to do this. Why now. It was a display of night crawler reportage, and more than sullying the former Prime Minister, Newman succeeded only in compromising his own integrity.
a great man once wrote that, "It is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short at times, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming. But who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
The man who wrote these words was known as TR. President Theodore Roosevelt.
TR would have said one other thing today. BULLY FOR BRIaN!