Patrick Muttart trail leads back to US dirty tricksters

Sun News headline, April 20, Brian Lilley  : Ignatieff linked to Iraq war planning

"As a politician in Canada, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has said that he was on the sidelines of the Iraq war, but new information reveals he was on the front lines of pre-invasion planning when he worked in the U.S."

Well, it is Sun News, aka Fox News North, after all, wot?

But then yesterday morning Sun Media Corp President Pierre Karl Peladeau published a photo that Sun News VP and former Harper spokesy Kory Teneycke had received from Harper's former deputy chief of staff Patrick Muttart.

It was "a compelling electronic image of a man very closely resembling Michael Ignatieff in American military fatigues, brandishing a rifle in a picture purported to have been taken in Kuwait in December 2002", together with "a clip from a Pentagon press briefing in which an American colonel thanked Michael Ignatieff specifically for his work in preparation for the invasion" on the day before the invasion.

Trouble was - it wasn't Iggy in the photo, a discovery credited to Teneycke by Peladeau.

Peladeau :

"It is my belief that this planted information was intended to first and foremost seriously damage Michael Ignatieff's campaign but in the process to damage the integrity and credibility of Sun Media and, more pointedly, that of our new television operation, Sun News."

Later in the day Muttart's present employer, the US PR company Mercury Public Affairs, responded to Peladeau :

"At no point did Muttart tell Sun Media that he had positively identified Ignatieff in the photo in question."

and went on to describe Muttart's work in helping set up the branding of Sun News :

For the record, Mercury was hired by Quebecor to assist Sun News with its pre-license branding and positioning. Muttart worked with a creative agency to develop the network's original logo (a modified version is currently in use). And he was the original source for the network's "hard news" and "straight talk" framing language."

including Muttart's pro bono work for Sun News after his contract ended!

Of particular interest here is that while all this was going on, Muttart was also working for the Harper re-election campaign :

"mostly from his Chicago home base where he has worked for an American public affairs firm since 2009, returning occasionally to Ottawa as needed. ... A source close to Muttart said the photo was found online by a U.S.-based political party researcher ."

"He has no further role in our campaign," Conservative spokesman Alykhan Velshi said from the party’s Ottawa war room. Muttart recently returned to work on the Conservative campaign as a consultant “offering advice on messaging and strategy,” according to Velshi.

According to Mr. Velshi, the Tory campaign "provided Sun Media with information that had been acquired during Internet research, namely a photograph described as that of Mr. Ignatieff. The campaign made clear to Sun Media that the identity in the photograph could not be verified and that our own efforts to verify the photograph had been exhausted."

So. Patrick Muttart, former Harper staffer, helps Kory Teneycke, another former Harper staffer, set up the brand for Sun News and then sends him incriminating but fake material in what looks to be an attempt to swiftboat Michael Ignatieff - and he did this while giving "advice on messaging and strategy" to Harper's re-election war room? Unbelievable!

So who is this US company Mercury Public Affairs that Muttart now works for - presumably the source of the photo found by "a US-based political party researcher" ?

Mercury - A firm specializing in "high-value public affairs," including image management, polling, and "grassroots coalition building".
Company slogan : "We know what it takes to win in difficult situations."

May 20, 2009 :

Mercury Public Affairs named Patrick Muttart as an MD [Managing Director] and leader of the firm's new Canada/US practice, starting May 4. Muttard is the former deputy chief of staff for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former chief marketing strategist for the Conservative Party of Canada. At Mercury Public Affairs, he will also work with the international public affairs team, which is led by partner Terry Nelson.

Muttart's new boss Terry Nelson, former political director of the 2004 Bush Cheney campaign and former McCain-Palin campaign manager, is now also a Senior Advisor to teabagger and 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, which might go some distance towards explaining why Harper's recent campaign ad bore such a strong resemblance to Pawlenty's.  [My parody of Harper's ad here.]

Here's Rachel Maddow on Terry Nelson : the race-baiting, the phonejamming dirty tricks, and, before his firm Crosslink Strategy Group became an operating unit of Mercury Public Affairs, the staffer in his employ who was previously the media advisor on the original Swiftboat Veterans For Truth ads , which used lies and doctored photos to smear John Kerry's war record.



Which pretty much brings us full circle on the apparent attempt to swiftboat Michael Ignatieff by a former Harper staffer on loan from a Republican PR company during our election.

Update : Sixth Estate has a few questions.

Thursday Upperdate : Cons : No, no, no, he wasn't in our war room while simultaneously advising Sun Media.
Muttart : Yes, I was.

PostMedia : "Contrary to what some have reported, Patrick hasn't been working in the (Conservative) war room or been in Ottawa," wrote Conservative spokesman Chisholm Pothier in an email."

CP : Tory strategist says he advised Sun Media, and worked for political war room

"Patrick Muttart, the former deputy chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told The Canadian Press on Thursday he gave periodic unpaid advice to Sun Media in recent weeks to help it launch its new television news channel. Until this week, he was also on the Tory payroll as a consultant to the party's election war room."

We still don't know, however, what he was doing sending false and incriminating stuff on Iggy to The Sun in the middle of an election. And did he send it from the Con war room and on whose instructions?
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Blood on their hands

CNN : WikiLeaks founder may have 'blood' on his hands
Reuters : WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands, U.S. says

Both sources quote Admiral Mike Mullen :

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing," Mullen said. "But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

Guardian : The War Logs :

"...the marines opening fire with automatic weapons as they tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, hitting almost anyone in their way – teenage girls in fields, motorists in their cars, old men as they walked along the road. Nineteen unarmed civilians were killed and 50 wounded."

Two hours later they returned to confiscate camera evidence.
A news photographer said they told him : "Delete them, or we will delete you."
A US army colonel paid $2,000 to the families of each victim and Major General Francis Kearney ordered the marines to pull the entire 120-man company out of the country.

Washington Post reader question to Assange :

"Did you take steps to delete the names and other identifying information of informants before you released the 90,000+ documents? If not, how do you answer the charge that your actions may get these informants killed?

Assange :

"We released 36,000 out of the 92,000 or so documents in the Afghan War Diaries. 15,000 have been held for further review because they may contain information about innocents or informants. We also asked the White House to provide resources to help us vet the materials; the White House did not respond."

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Yesterday Obama signed the new Afganistan troop surge bill, passed by both Democrats and Republicans.
Last month, after accusing Stephen Harper of making a decision to “cut and run” from Afghanistan, Michael Ignatieff called for Canadians to stay in Afghanistan after 2011 as police and army trainers.

Harper and Iggy both supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and both voted to extend the Afghanistan occupation from 2009 to 2011.
Former human rights advocate Ignatieff is providing Harper and Obama with the cover necessary to support and extend that occupation.

It's down to all of us now to blow that cover : Rethink Afghanistan
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Update : Voice of America Aug. 3

"Documents containing the names of sources were marked "Secret," a mid-level security classification. They then were widely distributed across a classified Pentagon computer network called "SIPRnet," a kind of classified Internet, as one analyst put it, which was set up to foster greater information-sharing within the defense and intelligence communities.
Officials believe this is how the leaker got his hands on them.

Former CIA director Michael Hayden tells VOA that means the real identities of sources were available to thousands of people."

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Libs pass the Cons budget, again

On Tuesday the following 30 Liberals passed the Cons budget bill by not showing up for the vote :

Larry Bagnell, Carolyn Bennett, Gerry Byrne, Denis Coderre, Irwin Cotler, Jean-Claude D'Amours, Ruby Dhalla, Stéphane Dion, Ujjal Dosanjh, Ken Dryden, Martha Hall Findlay, Hedy Fry, Albina Guarnieri, Andrew Kania, Jim Karygiannis, Derek Lee, Gurbax Malhi, Keith Martin, John McKay, Dan McTeague, Bernard Patry, Glen Pearson, Bob Rae, Pablo Rodriguez, Todd Russell, Michael Savage, Alan Tonks, Bryon Wilfert, Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Peter Milliken

Click on the name to see their full voting record.

Ignatieff termed the budget a "dumpster bill" and "an abuse of power" for, among other omnibus outrages, its provision to give the environment minister the power to bypass environmental assessments on major projects he wants passed. Then the Libs passed the dumpster bill, as they have every Con budget since Harper came to power 2008. (Thanks for the correction, Jurist)
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Canada Colombia FTA : How much for the little girl Part 2

The second item on the agenda when parliament resumes on Monday is the second reading of the Canada Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Bill C-23.

The Dominion posts that :

"There are strong indications that the Liberal Party are intending to support the bill. We managed to back them off once before - we need to do so again."

and provides email addies of the relevant Lib MPs, including former human rights activist Michael Ignatieff. Go.

This can only pass with Liberal support, the Bloc and NDP are opposed.

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Yesterday the US State Department ok'd $32 million that Washington had previously withheld due to human and labour rights abuses, bringing to $545 million the total going to Colombia this fiscal year to fight gangs and drug smugglers buy access to Colombian military facilities.

"A U.N. human rights investigator reported separately in June that soldiers had killed hundreds of innocent civilians, falsely identifying them as guerrillas slain in combat to boost body counts. Officials have vowed to eliminate that practice."

Oh well then.

Of course these 'practices' have been ok with Harper since way back in 2007 :

"When we see a country like Colombia that has decided to address its social, political and economic problems in an integrated way, that wants to embrace democracy and human rights, then we say, 'We're in,' he said."

"We are not going to say fix all your social, political and human rights problems and only then will we engage in trade relations with you. That's a ridiculous position," Harper said.

and at last year's Leaders' Summit :

"if the United States and our allies turn their back on an important ally in this region, that will have long-term security consequences for all of our countries in North America."

Not to mention putting a serious crimp in the planned relaunch of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Plan B, aka "Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas".

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Two days till C-23 hits parliament. Send a freakin letter to the Libs now. GO.

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And I suppose you could also drop a note to Steve :

How much for the little girl?

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Update : Pogge's letter :

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To: IgnatM@parl.gc.ca, RaeB@parl.gc.ca, MinnaM@parl.gc.ca, CanniJ@parl.gc.ca, BrisoS@parl.gc.ca, SilvaM@parl.gc.ca

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Dear Honorable Members:

The Conservative government has placed Bill C-23, the legislation to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, on the order paper for this Monday the 14th of September. As I'm sure you are all aware, the Parliamentary Committee on International Trade has recommended that this legislation not be implemented until an objective third party does a thorough assessment on the human rights record of the Alvaro Uribe government which, by many accounts, has the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere.

I would ask that you please honour the recommendation of the committee and vote no on Bill C-23.

Yours truly,

[... ]

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I'm betting Pogge wouldn't mind if you sampled it.

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On crying wolf

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Last September Harper broke his own rules to trigger an election in the fond hope of being returned with a majority, and he did so to the almost universal acclamation of our national media.
A year later we have Iggy threatening to bring Harper down at the first available opportunity.
How are the major newsies doin' with that?

Liberals only engaged in political opportunism
It's all about vanity

What's a billion wasted among friends?

NDP, Bloc might save us from Ignatieff's folly

He couldn't have picked a worse time

Ignatieff's election blunder

Ignatieff will lose if he can't justify trip to polls

Is Michael Ignatieff afraid of being called a wimp?

The Liberal leader who cried wolf

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Ok, you get the general idea. Apparently most of our print pundits are again lining up in the considerable shade of concentrated media ownership under Harper's fat arse, and even the more neutral among them are arguing that this election call is a huge blunder on Iggy's part because there is no single burning issue for the voting public to rally around.

Meanwhile the rest of us are looking at the incremental dismemberment of our country.

That last headline - The Liberal leader who cried wolf. Iggy has cried wolf a half dozen times to date and the villagers are rightly pissed at him for this, but in the end of Aesop's fable, the sheep still get eaten by the wolf.

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Drill, Iggy, Drill

The identity of the author of the anonymously hosted website Republicans For Ignatieff remains a mystery - Who is besmirching Iggy? Is it a dipper? Or is it a Con? But today via David Akin, we learn there is now a real live Republican activist for Iggy attached to those fingers in the picture at left :
REPUBLICANS FOR IGNATIEFF AT THE MISSOURI STATE FAIR

"AUGUST 24, 2009 --This past weekend, Republicans for Ignatieff held its first Ignatieff Meet and Greet at the Missouri State Fair.
The event was a huge success. We distributed our new Republicans for Ignatieff signs and stickers to numerous GOP supporters. Future meet and greets are being planned in Alabama, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, and yes, Canada.
More and more Republicans agree: Michael Ignatieff is the right choice for America, the right choice for Canada and the right choice for Republicans."

"When Sarah Palin came out and said, drill, baby, drill, it hit a nerve with folks here. It really caught on. If we can get the Canadian version which is “Drill, Iggy, Drill”, or whatever you want to say, we need to utilize that source not only for our energy needs but for our national security needs. I think [Ignatieff] is well-suited to run the Canadian government."

Hoo boy.
Of course, this would not be the first time a so-called grassroots hoax got a promotion to reality.
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Consumated : a blue ribbon panel. Oooooh.

The ConservaLiberal coalition in action :

Walkom : "For the Liberals, the time is never right. They come up with endless excuses for never forcing an election on the minority Harper government: They don't have enough money; they don't have enough candidates; their leader is too new; the polls are inauspicious; the weather is too warm; the weather is too cold..."

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The Cons : Six days in a leaky boat

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt's communications director leaves a binder of documents marked "Secret" about the nuclear industry behind at CTV News following interview with Raitt. She resigns.

Same communications director leaves tape recorder behind in House of Commons washroom. Enclosed tape had been left on accidentally and is said to have recorded Raitt making disparaging comments about Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.
Ex-communications director is in court right now to prevent the Halifax Chronicle Herald from publishing contents of tape. Official government position : "Nothing to do with us."

Four board members at the Toronto Port Authority reported that when Lisa Raitt was its CEO, lunch could cost nearly $1000 and management approved their own expenses.
ETA : Transport Minister John Baird responded by changing the TPA constitution to add two new board members the day after parliament was shut down so Steve wouldn't lose his job prorogued in December, putting the four complaining board members in a minority position. Olivia Chow alleges move was a cover-up to protect Lisa Raitt.

Steve gets busted by whistleblower who forwards docs to Le Devoir confirming the HarperCon strategy at the 2007 Climate Change Conference in Bali to surreptitiously undermine the Bali agreement on greenhouse gas reductions while publicly appearing to support it. Strategy consisted of sowing division among European nations - Boris nails it.

I have to go out for a little bit. If there are any further leaks while I'm gone, please leave me a message in comments.
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4:30 Update : The Chronicle Herald -1, Lisa Raitt's ex-aide -0 :
On the now partially published tape which you can listen to at the above link, Raitt and MacDonnell discuss Raitt's political opportunities dealing with the isotope "crisis" :

"We had to control the agenda."

"It's sexy. Radioactive leaks. Cancer. Nuclear contamination"

Raitt :

"Because when we win on this, we get all the credit. I’m ready to roll the dice on this. This is an easy one. You know what solves this problem? Money. And if it’s just about money, we’ll figure it out. It’s not a moral issue."

Oh dear. Cancer and nuclear contamination as sexy career opportunities.
Plus there's a bonus Oh dear for Iggy :

"Ms. Raitt tells the man driving them around Victoria that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had backed down from defeating the Conservative government on a budget a few days earlier because he got a message from Canadian bankers.

"They did it at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room — and this is not from cabinet so I can talk about it — stood up and said, 'Ignatieff, don’t you even think about bringing us to an election,' " said Ms. Raitt.
"'We don’t need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.' That was very powerful. So he heard it from very powerful people in the industry. He was definitely muzzled."

Ooops. And here I thought the CCCE controlling the ConservaLiberals was supposed to be just a tinfoil hatful of bloggy conspiracy theories.
January. That would put it right about when Iggy snuffed the coalition of opposition parties.
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Cons to bring back anti-terrorism powers

Last night Justice Minister Rob Nicholson gave notice the

Cons will reintroduce extraordinary police and judicial powers from the Anti-Terrorism Act that would :

1)Give police the power to make preventive arrests, without a warrant, of anyone authorities fear might commit a future terrorist attack, and

2)Give judges the power to compel testimony at secret investigative hearings from anyone the authorities think might know something about terrorism, or risk jail.

After 9/11, the Liberals brought in Canada's first Anti-Terrorism Act in December 2001. It included these two provisions but with a five year sunset clause. As they were about to expire, the Cons tried to extend them but the opposition parties combined to prevent it.

Explaining the Liberal change of heart against the provisions in Feb. 2007, then deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff argued that "the curtailment of civil liberties can only be justified under emergency provisions and when public safety absolutely requires it".

"If this is the test," he said, "the clauses should sunset because they have not proven absolutely necessary to public safety. The government, in essence, has not proven its case and on these questions where our liberties are at stake the government has to prove the case of public necessity beyond a shadow of a doubt."

In March 2008, the Libs changed their minds once again and came out in support of them, after oversight changes were included :

"We recognize that this is necessary," public safety critic Ujjal Dosanjh said. "Other countries have much more stringent laws."

Against whom? Olympics 2010 protesters? Native activists? Some poor schmuck at a fat camp?

So, human rights specialist Michael Ignatieff, how will you greet this newest attack on our civil liberties on Thursday?

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Iggy prepares to "swallow hard"

Congratulations, Libs. Tomorrow will mark the 45th time in a row that you have sat on your hands in Parliament because you can't afford to fight an election because no one gives money to fight elections to parties that sit on their hands in Parliament.

Iggy - PM if necessary but not necessarily PM - did go all medieval schoolmarmy on they Con ass, demanding regular quarterly progress reports on how the budget plan he had just finished lambasting was progressing.

G&M :

"We're putting this government on probation," Mr. Ignatieff said.
By 4 p.m., the government, relieved that the conditions did not require more substantive concessions, accepted the amendment, saying that providing updates to Parliament and facing votes wasn't really a new burden.
"This is nothing new. … We always report back to Parliament," Government House Leader Jay Hill said.
"The amendment just states the obvious, so we're very pleased to comply with it as we move forward."

Shorter Jay Hill : Swallow harder, bitch.
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Gaza : "an eye for an eyelash"

Mother and child, Zeitoun, south-east Gaza.

First the Israeli army drops the leaflets warning Palestinians to get out of their homes because there will be an air raid. Then they pack 110 of them, half of whom are children, into a single-storey house in Zeitoun, south-east Gaza, "for their safety". Then they bomb the house. Repeatedly. Then they refuse to allow medical teams to evacuate the wounded.

The UN, which has called for an "immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from Gaza" (Vote 14-0, US abstaining), has called for an investigation.

The Guardian :
"The UN put the Palestinian death toll at 758, of whom it said 42% were women and children – 60 women and 257 children. Around 3,100 Palestinians have been injured.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed bringing the Israeli death toll to 13, of whom three were civilians.
"There is no safe space in the Gaza Strip – no safe haven, no bomb shelters, and the borders are closed and civilians have no place to flee," said a report from the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. It said three quarters of Gaza's 1.5 million people had now been without electricity since Sunday, and 800,000 Gazans had no running water.

"The UN relief and works agency, by far the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza, suspended its operations yesterday, after Israeli forces opened fire on a UN-contracted convoy collecting food aid from the Erez crossing in north Gaza. One man was killed and two others injured. Later , a marked UN convoy of two armoured vehicles was hit by Israeli troops when they stopped to try to recover the dead body of a Palestinian UN staff member during a scheduled three-hour ceasefire."

I wonder what was difficult to figure out about a white truck with a big red cross painted on the roof. Perhaps that 14-0 UN resolution for complete withdrawal from Gaza was to blame.

The Guardian again :

"15,000 Gazans are sheltering in UN schools because they have been forced to flee their homes in the face of the Israeli air and ground offensive, or even ordered out by Israeli troops. The UN has opened 27 of its schools as shelters. "

Israel has bombed two of them despite the UN giving the GPS coordinates to prevent it, and the UN has called for yet another inquiry.

So what's the reaction from Canada?

Michael "empire lite" Ignatieff in The Star yesterday:

"Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Israel is justified in taking military action to defend itself against attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
"Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself," he told reporters in Halifax yesterday after speaking to a forum of business leaders on the economy.
"Israel has been attacked from Gaza, not just last year, but for almost 10 years," Ignatieff said.
"They evacuated from Gaza so there is no occupation in Gaza."

Horrifying and disgusting, I know, and all points we dispensed with yesterday.

Blog reactions to Iggy's tripe were swift : POGGE, PSA at Canadian Cynic, Dr Dawg

Iggy had more nuancey things to say than CP and the Star suggest, as reported by supporter James Morton, but Iggy's pro-Israel lines are the familiar AIPAC quotes that the Canadian press will recognize and parrot.

So where are we getting our news, apart from a pro-Israel press and The Megaphone?

If you follow no other links here today, please be sure to click this one at Sudbury Against War and Occupation - Justin Podur : Turn Off the Canadian Media, Please.

Good advice and good alternative recommendations.

P.S. Signed the Amnesty petition yet? Speak out for peace in Gaza.

Rumours of the coalition

From my notes off CPAC coverage of Iggy’s Don't-fuck-with-me debut as the Liberal leader today :
"I am prepared to vote non-confidence in this government. And I am prepared to enter into a coalition government with our partners if that is what the Governor-General asks me to do. But I also made it clear to the caucus this morning that no party can have the confidence of the country if it decides to vote now against a budget it hasn't even read."


Kady live-blogging the same event : "This is kind of interesting - we the media don’t seem to know what to make of this. It’s going to be tough to spin this into another “coalition is dead” story, but I bet we’ll manage to do it somehow. We’re professionals."


Heh. Good one, Kady.
Well, they certainly tried. In his questions to Iggy afterwards, Corporate Television Vehicle's™ Craig Oliver was obviously astounded that Iggy hadn't yet dumped what he referred to as "The Three Muskateers", but then later reported that Harper, in a clear case of flop sweat, was planning to appoint 18 Con senators to the Senate before Christmas. Now why would Steve do that after campaigning for an end to an unelected senate?


Do I like Iggy? No, not much. Is he capable of outflanking Harper? Yes. Do I think he would dump the coalition in a heartbeat if he didn't need it? Yup. Is the coalition still viable? Yes. Will it be accompanied by ponies and rainbows? Nope.
This coalition idea is going to take time to appeal to a public more familiar with our unofficial ConservaLiberal corporate coalition and its media mouthpieces and there will be setbacks.


So don't be sending your rainbow ponies off into battle and then mourning their imaginary deaths.
Write a letter to your MP, sign a petition, call an openline show, talk to your neighbours.
Fight back. It's your coalition.
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Update : Thwap's Schoolyard :
What part of "majority rule" do you not get?

Expanded version on coalition-bashing via media monopoly at The Galloping Beaver.

A coronation if necessary but not necessarily a coronation

The puffin is a noble bird

He buries his own crap

But also Rae, Stephane Dion

And the coalition chaps.

No more a fan of torture

Or adventures in Iraq

He's been crowned by the Librulz

Just to fend off Gilles and Jack.

The rest of us are worried

What's hidden up his sleeve

But all will be forgiven

If he also buries Steve.

Dion resigns

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Shit. Here come the Ffeitangis....

Get your war off

A mere four days after appointing a panel of hawks and deep integrationists to determine Canada's future in Afghanistan, Harper announced his intention to have us stay till 2011 regardless. I guess their work is mostly already done then.

The purpose behind convening the panel now was to defuse any call to bring down the government over the Throne Speech, and to drive a wedge between the pro- and anti-war factions of the Libs. Possibly you remember Harper crossing the floor to shake Ignatieff's hand after securing sufficient Lib votes to extend the mission another two years last year. Let's not do that again.

If you would like to send a little note along to Steve and the opposition parties demanding an end to the war now , you can do so here, courtesy of Ceasefire.

Poem for Iggy

The puffin is a noble bird
It buries its own crap
Its favorite mode of landing
Is arse-over-teakettle asap.

Unlike those dodgy penguins
With their "family values" rap,
A puffin lays an egg just once a year -
Which is a lot less often than a certain aspiring Liberal Party leader chap.


Link : Excrement-hiding bird championed as Liberal symbol
But for the record? I think Ignatieff was just goofing around.

LOL !! : See Mes Amis' poem in the comments

Ignatieff's mea pulpa

"The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgment of a president. But it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion."

In his NY Times mea culpa piece, Ignatieff explains there were the people who were right in their judgement against invading Iraq, there were people like himself who were wrong about it for the right reasons, and finally there were the people who were right for the wrong reasons - those being the ones who said it was all about oil and the US.

He invokes Isaiah Berlin, Roosevelt, Churchill, Bismarck, Truman, Samuel Beckett, De Gaulle, Machiavelli, Edmund Burke, Kant, and the prophet Isaiah.

These are the only dead mentioned in his apology.

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UPDATE : Chet points out that Iggy is a deeply stupid man

Left End of the Dial : Michael Ignatieff in haiku. Heh.