Saturday, May 30, 2009

Pierre Poilievre’s “tar-baby”

This is nuts. Pierre Poilievere referred to the Liberal carbon tax policy as a "tar baby". Ralph Goodale (no doubt after deep consultation with the Liberal brainless trust) called his remark "racist" and demanded an apology. And naturally the Libs had black MP Marlene Jennings reinforce the phony outrage.

From Wikipedia:

In contemporary usage, "tar baby" refers to any "sticky situation" that is
only aggravated by additional contact.

While it’s true that some usages of the term "tar baby" can be racist, given the context in this case it’s impossible to find any "racist" meaning in Poilievre’s comment. Goodale and Jennings are a couple of trouble-making morons digging for a non-existent racial slur to hang on a conservative.

If any apologies are owed in this affair it’s Goodale and Jennings who owe them to Poilievre and to Parliament. And CTV News (Lisa La Phlegm, anchor) needs a smack up-side the head for highlighting this idiocy as a "top story".

Pierre Poilievre certainly has nothing to apologize for.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

MPs such as Marlene Jennings (she is just one example of many on both sides of the House - tho, the Libs have this down to a fine art) do not help their cause by allowing themselves to be used like this at every perceived slight.

By politicizing these incidents and blowing them out of proportion, they are like the boy who cried wolf ... nobody listens after awhile. Issues such as rascism are too important to be used to try to score points like this. Her actions are shameful ... not the Conservative MP's.

When she was interviewed, she wasn't satisfied with Pierre's lenghty and clear explanation of his use of the term and that it was in no way meant in any other sense. No, she felt he also had to say he would purge it from his vocabulary.

Sad.

Anonymous said...

I think that it is time for Mr. Poilievre to truly prove his point.

To illustrate just how meaningless this expression is, I think that he should go down and stand on the corner of Jay and Finch and greet everyone with "hello tar baby, have a nice day".

How long do you think he would last before he was picking up his teeth? 5 minutes, 10 minutes?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous above,

Wow! Tar sands oil has been discovered at Jane and Finch. I guess Ontario is going to be energy after all.

Platty said...

Anon at 5:41

Are you truly that dense?

Try looking at Poilievre's comments without the blinders on.


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Zookeeper said...

"Racist" refers only to one's opponent, and encompasses any practices of said opponent having referred to any act, word, social custom or cultural artifact of any race other than whitey.

"Multiculturalist" refers to oneself, should one choose to use it.

Any questions?

Bec said...

I want an apology for "knuckledragger", right now!!

This just shows how really stupid the Liberals are. Stupider, than I thought.
Now they can go after the word "stupid", because it actually DOES categorize an entire segment, Canadian LP, MP's!

Patrick Ross said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Patrick Ross said...

You're wrong.

One does not "sire" a "sticky situation". One does "sire" a child.

To me, the thought "secret black baby" came immediately to mind. Certainly, Poilievre never suggested that Ignatieff has a secret black baby, but there were evident racist connotations to his comments nonetheless.

JR said...

No, you are wrong. One does "conceive" ideas and policies that lead to "sticky situations". Attributing a "racial" connotation to an idea or tax policy is a ridiculous stretch. It's kinda like howling "racist" at a reference to the "white" crayon in one's colouring box.

The Libs are playing extremely fast, loose and nasty with the race card. They have a history of this kind of nonsense and should be called on it.

BTW - what came immediately to my mind was the Br'er Rabbit tale.

L said...

Well Iggy is sometimes American, so the Libs are newly sensitive to American meanings that are not Canadian.. How would Pierre know? We do not use this term derogatorily in Canada. Let's hope the Fibrils will be done now. Actually it distracted their hypocritical rant on the deficit they asked for.

Patrick Ross said...

"One does "conceive" ideas and policies that lead to "sticky situations". Attributing a "racial" connotation to an idea or tax policy is a ridiculous stretch. It's kinda like howling "racist" at a reference to the "white" crayon in one's colouring box."

That's a ridiculous allusion and you know it. If you're going to bend over backwards in order to defent Poilievre's extremely poor judgement, the least you could do is be a little more honest about this.

JR said...

No, it's you and your partisan fellow travellers, who feign outrage and charge "racism" at the drop of a noun, who need to "be a little more honest about this". But I have absolutely no expectation that you will.