FREAK(S) OF THE WEEK: Joe “You Lie” Wilson, Carrie “Opposite Marriage” Prejean, and Jack “Hypocrite” Layton

After a week off to attend the annual convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention in

Montreal, the FredBlog is back with a bag full o’ freaks. So let’s get the party started as the FredBlog shines its freaklight on this week’s Freaks of the Week:

1. Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina

Joe Wilson was freaky enough for shouting out “You lie” during President Barack Obama’s address to Congress. But piling freakiness upon freakiness is this past week’s revelation that Wilson, um, LIED!

If you recall, Wilson raised the roof during Obama’s healthcare address over the issue of illegal immigration. And what makes him such as expert on the issue? Here’s how he explained it during a press conference: “I’m for immigration, legal immigration. I’m an immigration attorney.”

However, as revealed by the website TPMmuckraker, he is nothing of the sort. In fact, he is a real estate lawyer. It even says so on his own website.

TPMmuckraker interviewed a number of South Carolina attorneys as well the American Immigration Lawyers Association. No one knows Wilson as anything but a real estate attorney.

So please join the FredBlog in shouting out to Mr. Wilson, “You lie!”

2. Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean

Carrie Prejean is full of catchphrases. First, she made headlines by giving props to “opposite marriage.” Now, it’s all about, “God chose me.”

You see, this past week Prejean spoke at the right-wing Family Research Council’s so-called Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. (Sarah Palin wasn’t available, so they went with someone who I’m guessing can’t even find Russia on a map!)

In her speech to the Value (if hate is a value) Voters, Prejean discussed her pageant moment when celebrity judge Perez Hilton asked her about same-sex marriage. She told the crowd, “As I saw my goals and aspirations flash by me, I knew God had a plan for me. … He chose me for that moment.”

Yes, Ms. Prejean, of all the people in the world, God chose a dumbass beauty queen. Donald Trump may have chosen you, but God certainly did not.

3. Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Jack Layton, leader of Canada’s far-left party, has made a career of bashing the center-left Liberal Party over the head for not voting down the ruling Conservative Party and its Bush-alike leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In fact, in the last election campaign, Layton puffed himself up as the only true opposition leader. And Layton’s disdain for Harper goes so deep that he didn’t even bother reading the last Conservative budget before deciding his party would vote against it.

But finally, the Liberals have had enough. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff announced this past week that his party would indeed vote to bring down the Conservatives, forcing a federal election.

Oh, but wait, the polls don’t look good for Layton and the New Democrats. So instead of siding with the Liberals, something he has been waiting for, Layton engineered a reason to prop up the Conservatives. Worse yet, Layton says he will continue to support the Conservatives on a number of upcoming confidence motions.

So on a dime, Layton has switched from damning the Liberals for propping up the Conservatives to doing it himself. Hypocrisy doesn’t begin to describe Layton’s freakiness.

FREAK(S) OF THE WEEK: Tom Ridge, Jack Layton and Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins

It was another week full o’ freaks on both sides of the border, with a repeat performance by Kansas Rep. Lynn Jenkins. So without further ado, the FredBlog shines its freaklight on this week’s Freaks of the Week:

1. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge

Tom Ridge, the very first Homeland Security Secretary, makes a stunning assertion in his new book, “The Test of Our Times.” In it, Ridge says he was pressured by others in President George W. Bush’s administration to raise the national color-coded terror threat level just prior to the 2004 election in order to scare the American people into voting Bush back into office. (As we all know, sadly, the tactic worked.)

But then Ridge went on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and not only changed his tune, but disavowed what’s in his own book.

Under Maddow’s questioning, Ridge said, in part, “Well, I think you are suggesting that it was only driven by, quite obviously the people who made the decision knew more about the threat than you and I do. And again I think it is a pretty radical conclusion to suggest that men and women entrusted with the safety of this country would predicate a decision upon any other basis other than to keep America safe.”

This is the exact opposite of what he just wrote in his own book. Did Dick Cheney get to him before Rachel Maddow did?

2. Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Apart from the Liberals and Conservatives (much like the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S.), Canada has four parties in the House of Commons. There’s the separatist Bloc Québécois, but there’s also the New Democratic Party (NDP), which is the far left party that sees the Liberals as too centrist (much like many progressives in the U.S. see the Democrats).

For months, the NDP and its leader – Jack Layton –said there is no way they would support the ruling Conservatives, so if there were an opportunity to dissolve the government and have a new election, the NDP would do it. In fact, Layton has pilloried the Liberals for voting with the Conservatives, allowing them to stay in power. Layton has long said that his party was the real opposition.

So finally, the Liberals and its leader – Michael Ignatieff – are talking about voting down the Conservatives. But wait? What is this? Layton says that he may finally be willing to work with the Conservatives and keep them in power.

Why the change of heart? Because Layton looked at the polls and saw that they don’t look good for his party. So now, all of a sudden, with a real threat of an election looming, Layton is willing to do what he criticized the Liberals for doing for oh-so-many months. Hypocrite!

3. Kansas Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins

Last week, the FredBlog surmised that Lynn Jenkins is either incredibly stupid, racist or both. Either way, it just gets worse.

Initially, Jenkins got in trouble for saying, “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope” to go up against President Barack Obama.

When it was pointed out to her that the phrase “great white hope” is a racist term dating back to the early 20^th century, Jenkins said she had no clue about the phrase’s racist overtones. (The phrase “great white hope” came into general usage after boxer Jack Johnson, who was black, won the heavyweight title – a victory that didn’t sit well with whites. So many then worked to find a white fighter – a “great white hope” – who could snatch the title away from Johnson.)

Now it turns out that Jenkins voted for a congressional resolution back in July that posthumously pardoned Johnson of a racially motivated conviction back in 1913.

So how could Jenkins say she didn’t know what “great white hope” referred to? Her press secretary happily reports that Jenkins didn’t read the bill! That’s right – Jenkins readily admits that she votes for things she doesn’t read. Yeah, that’s a great way to make yourself look good in the eyes of voters.

New Conservative ads don’t add up

If you thought the Conservative Party of Canada couldn’t go any lower than the trashy character-assassination campaign they ran against former Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, think again.

The Conservatives – led by I’ll-never-get-a-majority Prime Minister Stephen Harper – have launched Ignatieff.me. This time, their target is current Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives, they are making the same mistake many marketing people make. They are taking a tactic that worked once and laying the same template over a different product and audience under a different set of circumstances.

Even though there is no election going on, the Conservatives launched their campaign-style campaign last week, including a website – as silly as the one they did last year showing a puffin pooping on Dion’s shoulder – and TV ad, which are spewing up all over Canadian television.

The ads criticize Ignatieff on a number of fronts, but most notably, they make the argument that he is not a real Canadian because he lived and made a name for himself in the U.S. and Britain. This is just plain silly.

Did Harper & Co. not get the memo that Canada has become one of the most diverse, multicultural and globally aware nations on the planet? Isn’t it a good thing for Canada that Ignatieff has political connections throughout the world, particularly in the Obama administration? Do Harper & Co. not know that a large number of successful Canadians were born and raised elsewhere? And Ignatieff is hardly the first Canadian to leave his home and native land to gain experience and fame, but then return to utilize those skills learned abroad. (If you must, you can watch the ads for yourself at http://ignatieff.me/?p=ignatieff#watch.)

But if all that weren’t bad enough, the French version of the ad – airing in Quebec – is even worse. In that ad, the Conservatives criticize Ignatieff for speaking Parisian French instead of the “joual” French heard on the streets throughout La Belle Province. And by doing so, argue the Conservatives, Ignatieff is looking down on the Quebecois people.

First of all, since when is it evil for an Anglophone to speak non-Quebec French? For the most part, Francophones are more than willing to give Anglophones a break so long as they try to speak the other official language. And Ignatieff is fully bilingual, so his lack of Quebec colloquialism is irrelevant. The truth is that the Liberals are gaining strength in Quebec, and the Conservatives will try anything to stop this.

But also, this is the same Conservative Party that criticized the Liberals last year for assembling a coalition with “socialists and separatists.” At the time, Prime Minister Harper accused the Liberals of getting to close to Quebec nationalists. Now, Harper seems to be saying the exact opposite. Which is it?

The truth is that it is both – and neither. Harper and the Conservatives are willing to play with the fire of Quebec nationalism either way, so long as they think it will get them ahead politically. This is a cynical and dangerous game in which Harper is using separatist sentiment as a political pawn.

In the end, what the Conservatives don’t seem to realize is that Ignatieff is NOT Dion. Ignatieff is much more politically savvy and a much better communicator. While Dion was hesitant to fight back against disingenuous Conservative attacks, Ignatieff is taking them head on – and rightly dismissing them.

As he said last week, “When you're down in the polls, when you're presiding over the worst collapse in employment in recent memory, when you've got record bankruptcies everywhere you look, the thing you're going to do if you're in government and responsible for this mess is change the channel and that's what they're trying to do. Is that serious government? Is that serious politics? That's the kind of government we've got." (http://www.thestar.com/article/634672)

Ignatieff is right. Harper and the Conservatives are out of ideas as the Canadian economy crumbles around them. They are scared, and this latest campaign show it. 

The real “travesty” of Obama's visit

I guess some Canadians just don’t have enough to be upset about, so they can afford to be angry that U.S. President Barack Obama will not be speaking to Parliament during his visit to Ottawa later this month.

It isn’t enough that Obama made sure that Canada would be his first foreign visit since assuming the presidency. But some are complaining that Obama is visiting at a time when Parliament won’t be in session. (Of course, this begs the question: Parliamentarians just went back into session, so why are they already getting time off? But that’s an issue for another day.)

Obama has already set up a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and will likely meet with Opposition Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. Obama will also likely to hold some sort of press conference so that he can speak to the nation without the pomp and circumstance of speaking in the House of Commons.

Some are framing this as the Canadian government somehow slighting Obama, but published reports say the government may simply be accommodating Obama. As the Toronto Star put it, “There has been no indication Obama wants to address Parliament.” Obama reportedly wants his Feb. 19 visit to include as little pomp as possible.

But that hasn’t stopped the political hyperbole. Ken Sherman, vice chair of the Canadian chapter of Democrats Abroad, even called the current situation a “travesty.”

Really? A travesty? The real travesty in Canada-U.S. relations is the protectionist, anti-free-trade “buy American” provision in Obama’s U.S. stimulus plan, a measure that is poor diplomacy as well as bad economics. But you don’t hear people like Sherman screaming about that. In fact, most Canadians know little or nothing about this, which could decimate Canada’s already-struggling steel industry.

No, whether or not Obama speaks in Parliament, and putting all the blame on the Canadian government, is seemingly a higher priority for these folks. Canadians, after all, were dancing in the streets when Obama was elected, but why aren’t they protesting in the streets against Obama’s protectionist tendencies that could start a global trade war as well as severely curtail America’s attempt to repair its image around the world?

But that is seemingly of little matter, when the formality of a state visit is at stake.

Liberals find a third way on Conservative budget

Most people assumed that the Liberals had two options for the federal budget that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative presented yesterday. The Liberals could have announced their support, showing them to be as weak and capitulating as they were under former leader Stéphane Dion. Or they could have voted it down, which could have risked plunging the country into its fourth federal election in five years, something that certainly would not have been good for Canada’s economic stability.

But Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff found a better way, a third way. In his announcement earlier today, he and his Liberal caucus put the Conservatives and their budget “on probation” – neither voting it down, nor giving it whole-hearted support, either.

This is wise for a budget that no one saw as 100 percent bad nor 100 percent good. The reviews have rightly stated that the budget is a long way from the Conservatives’ poison-pill “financial update” of last fall, which is ideologically driven and lacking in any measures to help stimulate the economy.

This current budget may not go far enough – there is nothing addressing the nation’s Employment Insurance problem, for example – but there is a minimum amount of stimulus to keep the economy moving.

One of the biggest complaints from all of the opposition parties is that Stephen Harper is not to be trusted. Sure, the budget numbers are OK, they argue, but you can’t trust the Conservatives to show them the money when the time comes. Therein lies Ignatieff’s politically creative genius.

The Liberals will introduce amendments to the budget calling on the Conservatives to produce three accountability reports, detailing how the Conservatives are doing in terms of producing the economic stimulus they now promise. These reports will also be confidence motions, so if the Conservatives do not reach the economic targets they set in their own budget, they can and likely will be voted out of office.

This is the ultimate in accountability for a Conservative party that loves to talk about accountability, but rarely likes to apply such principles to itself.

All this is also better politics – and policy – than the knee-jerk reaction coming from NDP leader Jack Layton and Bloc Québécois head Gilles Duceppe. They decided before they even saw the budget that they were going to vote it down.

And I feel their pain. Like Layton and Duceppe, I would much rather see a left-wing coalition government than sit through any more time with Harper’s Conservatives in power. The government should have been voted down after the financial update was issued last fall, and Harper should never have been allowed to prorogue Parliament in order to avoid a non-confidence motion. That was a corruption of democratic principles, and both Harper and Governor General Michaelle Jean are to blame for that.

But the current budget should not be judged based upon Harper’s past behaviour, but on what the current budget offers and the ability of Harper to keep his promises. And the Conservatives are not likely to vote against the Liberal amendments for fear of being seen as anti-accountability.

Harper, whether he feels it in his heart or is just doing it to save his political skin, seemingly learned something from his near-death scare before the prorogation. Now it is up to Ignatieff and the Liberals to make sure those lessons stuck.

If they didn’t, then it will finally be time to throw the bums out.

Liberal Party needs a grassroots lesson

Some in the Liberal Party of Canada need a serious lesson in grassroots democracy. After all this talk about whether the party should have involved the Liberal rank and file in choosing the next leader, you would think we would all know what “grassroots” means by now.

It’s already been established that the party opted not to consult the grassroots, but instead chose a closed-door, invitation-only process that will lead to an uncontested Michael Ignatieff being installed as leader.

But now some are doing rhetorical back flips to justify this decision.

On CBC Newsworld’s “Politics” program on Dec. 10, host Don Newman asked his two Liberal panelists if they thought the “grassroots” would be satisfied with the process that chose Ignatieff as leader.

The response by David Herle, a Liberal consultant and an advisor to former Prime Minister Paul Martin, was shockingly out of touch. I was so surprised by his response, I had to rewind the clip on my DVR to make sure I heard him correctly. He said: “I think the grassroots were consulted. I consider the riding presidents of the Liberal Party and the defeated candidates of the Liberal Party to be the grassroots, to be the rank and file of the party. I don’t think we have more important people in the party than the people who perform the function of riding president.”

Is he kidding? If the riding presidents and defeated candidates are the grassroots, what are the campaign volunteers? The dirt? What about the people who knock on doors canvassing for votes, the people who hand out literature on street corners, the people who seal fundraising envelopes and hang up campaign signs? What about the people who dutifully pay their party membership fees so they can have a say in the direction of the party? They are the grassroots.

Bob Rae was right. In order to win back power, the Liberal Party must be prepared to open itself up and become a more democratic institution.

Fairly or not, the conventional wisdom is that the Liberal Party is just waiting to win back power – to once again become the Natural Governing Party – without being serious about its need to go through a rejuvenation process. Herle’s comments just reinforce that the conventional wisdom is right.

Liberals choose expediency over democracy

The Liberal Party national executive had two choices in naming an “interim leader.” They could have come up with some way of hearing from Liberal Party members from across the nation. Or they could have limited the discussion to a small group of by-invitation-only guests. Unfortunately, they chose the latter.

As a result, now-former leadership candidate Bob Rae withdrew from the race on Dec. 9, aware that he would be unable to win over as much support in the Liberal caucus as enjoyed by Michael Ignatieff, the only leadership candidate left standing.

Rae, however, was not the only victim of the party’s decision. Democracy, party building, and grassroots involvement were also left as road kill along the path leading to Ignatieff’s coronation. (Ignatieff is now set to take over as interim leader, with the convention slated for May becoming a pro forma – if constitutionally mandated – event to pick a “permanent leader.”)

While there is no doubt in my mind that the nation would be well served with Ignatieff as the next prime minister, I am concerned about how the party executive’s decision will play itself out.

Firstly, this decision tunes out the voices of workaday Liberals, including all those volunteers whose involvement is so crucial to campaigns. Just look at the recent Democratic primary process that chose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. Democrats choose their presidential nominee through a combination of elected delegates (those elected by party members through voting) and super-delegates (party officials, members of Congress, and other high muckety-mucks.) With the elected delegate count so close, the super-delegates actually had the numbers to overturn the voters’ decision and throw the election to Clinton. While the super-delegates had the right to do that, they knew that if they had chosen that path, party members would have revolted. The same could happen here by completely shutting down the leadership process and picking the leader behind closed doors.

Secondly, I fear that without a contested leadership race, the party will not be able to do the groundwork necessary to rebuild. Without an opportunity to hash out the competing visions of the party brought by Rae and Ignatieff, workaday Liberals won’t get the chance to open the hood of the party, check its oil, kick its tires, and really diagnose what led to such a disappointing election result. (And no, simply changing leaders won’t do the trick.)

But also, without even Liberals getting a chance to pick their next leader, I fear that Canadians in general will feel like Ignatieff is just being thrust upon them, anticipating his next coronation as prime minister. Ignatieff and the party now will have to work that much harder to convince all Canadians that he is the right person to lead the nation after the disastrous, selfish, and deceitful tenure of Stephen Harper.

To his credit, Rae was gracious, practical, and well-spoken in his press conference announcing his withdrawal from the race. As he said, “Our own ambitions are less important than the greater interest of the Liberal Party and the greater interest of the country.” The party now has to show that its coronation decision is indeed in the best interest of the party and the nation.

All Liberals must have a say in new leader

Wounded Liberal leader Stéphane Dion must go ASAP. And the Liberal leadership race must be expedited. However, that increased speed in picking a new leader should not come at the expense of democracy. All members of the Liberal Party have a say in who the new leader will be.

Certainly, a new Liberal leader must be in place by the time Parliament reconvenes on Jan. 26. But that leader should not simply be installed by the federal Liberal caucus, which plans to meet behind closed doors on Dec. 10.

Not surprisingly, leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff has not spoken out against this closed-door strategy. Most likely, that’s because he has the majority support of fellow MPs – as well as the 58 Liberal senators – and would likely be named the new leader without any input from the grassroots. (Technically, he would be named “interim leader” by the party’s national executive, with the leadership convention still slated for May. But the convention delegate vote, which would choose a “permanent leader,” would become a mere formality.)

Also unsurprisingly, Ignatieff’s competitor, Bob Rae, favours a more open competition that would consult Liberals from coast to coast to coast through phone and email balloting.

While both Rae and Ignatieff would personally benefit from the system they and their supporters are advocating, Rae’s position is the one that is in line with open democracy, party revitalization, and grassroots involvement.

As Rae and others have pointed out, if the choice of party leader is left up to Liberal MPs, only 77 ridings will be represented in the decision-making process. This caucus-only solution leaves Liberals from 231 ridings – those that do not have a Liberal MP – in the dark and out in the hallway while the decision is made. Most troubling of all is that the areas of the country that need the most Liberal rebuilding – namely Quebec and the West – will be the areas least involved in the process.

Just as Rae was right when he walked out of a Mississauga leadership debate last month that was closed to the media, Rae is right again about what is needed in this selection process. Whatever the party decides to do, the process of picking the next leader must be democratic, open, inclusive, and transparent.

Rae and others have said that the party needs a contest, not a coronation. That’s true, because coronations don’t work. The Republican Party in 2000 coronated George W. Bush as its leader – and we see how well that turned out. And just this year, it was supposed to be a coronation for Hillary Clinton, but when that turned into a real contest, the people had something else in mind.

In Canada, as in the U.S., parties must listen to the people.