Category: Politics

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Politician Excuses: Revised

For those of you who missed it, there is a neat story running around about George Lepp, a Conservative candidate in the upcoming Ontario provincial election. It seems that pictures of his private bits spent 20 minutes posted on Yfrog, an online social media site, with a link on Twitter. Yes, this is one of those news stories that make you scratch your head. But, as the details come out, more than normal head scratching appears to be needed.

I know, all of you are asking about where the pictures came from or, maybe, why he posted them. Remember that posting the picture to Yfrog and then linking it to Twitter isn’t something one would normally do by accident. You see, according to his campaign spokesman, the picture was unintentionally taken when his Blackberry in was “in camera mode in his front pocket.” Apparently, the next step in this sad tale is that his Blackberry was stolen when he was jostled by protesters and apparently posted by whoever stole it. Notice that there is no dispute on the ownership of the picture’s contents.

OK. The Toronto Sun reported “The pictures — too graphic to reproduce in the newspaper — are of a man naked from the waist down, showing a close up of his penis and his crossed legs.”

So, explain to me the following. First, seeing your crossed legs, not counting anything else, in a picture taken from as close as the contents of your pocket makes me wonder what sort of lens is in a Blackberry camera. I haven’t seen the picture (nor do I want to…) so I can’t really determine if the picture is taken from as close a source as is suggested. Secondly, how much of your skin can you see from inside your pocket? A friend on Twitter said he tried to take pictures of his junk from his pocket with his iPhone but had no success. Obviously, Blackberries are way better than iPhones. I mean, picture the ad: Need to take pictures of your penis from your pocket? There’s an app for that!

So if you think I believe the explanation, you’re a bit off target. I’m a bit unsure how it got posted to Twitter, but I really wonder why someone runs around with pictures of his own bits on his cell phone camera… and, who believes you should vote for him….

Additional Note:

It seems someone has decided that the story was a bit weak so the new version seems, according to CBC, that the ownership of the bits in question is now a mystery. Mr. Lepp’s spokesman is saying that no one knows the source of the picture or how they were posted. The best part of this… same spokesman, different story. Don’t you love politics?

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New MPs

I am  suprised by the number of people who automatically assume that the NDP will fail as an official opposition party. Interestingly enough, almost no reason is given for this presumed failure… and when one does show up, it’s usually that their MPs don’t have a great deal of experience.

I find this particularly strange since all of the other parties have a number of new MPs. For example, the Conservative Party has  37 new MPs, 22 from the province of Ontario alone, yet no one is saying that the party will fall apart because of their inexperience. The Liberal Party has only 2 new MPs out of 34 seats, but they have far greater problems than inexperience on their back. The Bloc has a single new MP,  but that also represents 25% of the 4 seats they hold. And, of course, the Green Party’s single seat is also filled with a new MP.

So, why would inexperience be an issue? Policy is not set by new MPs, but rather by the parties themselves. And, it’s not like all of the members are new, just as is the case for all of the other parties (other than the Green Party). All parties have methods for ensuring the training and indoctrination of new members into parliamentary procedure and function. The House itself also runs training for new MPs. It seems strange that people would put forward a reason for poor performance that crosses all party lines.

Actually, I don’t have an answer as to why the NDP would perform more poorly than any of the other parties. Let’s be honest. They do have a leg up on other parties. For example, the Liberal Party doesn’t have a leader (and the last one they had wasn’t even capable of defending himself against out of context or just invented slights put forward by the Conservatives, so would hardly be capable of running either an opposition, or heaven forbid, a federal government). Yes, he did teach at Harvard but is a perfect example of where book smarts don’t work out in all contexts. Worse yet, the best bet for an interim leader, Bob Rae, probably won’t garner any more respect than Michael Ignatieff or Stéphane Dion. If they make him permanent leader, my first assumption is that the party won’t exist after the next election… if it does before the next election.

One thing to note. A number of those new NDP MPs are currently, or were currently, political science majors. This probably gives them far more insight than new MPs with a background in business or law. I’m expecting the NDP will do an excellent job at holding the government accountable, or at least as good a job as any opposition can do against a majority government. At the very least, since I haven’t really supported any particular party for the last 10 years, I’m willing to do the responsible thing and at least give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, it seems to be a better approach than whining, which has been far more prevalent…