Hypocrisy At Its Best

You may have noticed that most of the country's leading newspapers have endorsed Stephen Harper's Conservatives. As far as I've seen, the only exception is the Toronto Star, which would have endorsed a mailbox for Prime Minister provided that it were painted in Liberal Red.

I'm not really irritated by right-wing papers like the National Post endorsing the Tories. They support the Conservative ideology so it's only natural for them to endorse the Conservative party.

What ticks me off is the choice made by supposedly non-partisan papers like the Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Globe and Mail.

The Globe editorial board has opposed every single one of Stephen Harper's key policies. The opposed the GST cut, they opposed the $1200 a year child care plan and they opposed the botched implementation of the accountability act. Yet they still endorsed Stephen Harper, praising his leadership abilities and claiming that he's grown into the job.

The Ottawa Citizen's endorsement is even more ludicrous. They endorsed Harper but preferred the Liberal platform. They wanted Stephen Harper to get elected but suggested that he should steal the Liberal Green Shift plan...

These newspapers have been taken for a ride by Conservative Party spin doctors. They oppose everything about the Conservative Party, but still endorse Harper because they have been told often enough that "Stephen Harper is a strong leader who gets things done".

Conversely, these newspapers have all supported most key planks of the Liberal platform (Green shift, 30-50 poverty plan, infrastructure plan), but still attack Stéphane Dion since he's, according to the latest Conservative TV ads, "Not a leader".

The hypocrisy is disgusting. These newspapers claim to be motivated entirely by ideas, but when they are given the choice between a cerebral nerd defending a coherent platform they support and an opportunistic politician defending a 40 page advertising document they oppose, they pick the politician for his "leadership" and "steady hand". They claim to be intellectually fair and transparent, but they're the first ones to fall for the spin.

Next time these papers publish an editorial bemoaning the lack of decorum in the House of Commons, the lack of vision from our leaders, the lack of transparency, the lack of bench strength, the lack of coherent economic, social and environmental policy we can point to their endorsement of Stephen Harper and say: "you asked for it, hypocrites".