• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

  • Blog
  • About
  • The North Korea Conundrum

Sex, Hockey and the Global Crisis

October 2, 2006 By Mackenzie Brothers

The first round ballots are in and it’s beginning to look very much as if Michael Ignatieff will be chosen leader of the Liberal Party of Canada at their convention in December, and would then be a very good bet to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Ignatieff would be a most interesting opponent in any bilateral discussions with the US at a time in which the two countries are drifting apart faster than the Greenland icebergs are racing away from their former home. The alienation of its neighbours could be one of the more long-lasting results of the increasingly incomprehensible actions of a government in Washington that seems intent on separating itself from the rules of behaviour adhered to by its (former?) allies. Ignatieff would surely be the most experienced and knowledgeable expert on global affairs – he ran the appropriate institute at Harvard before making a run at Canadian politics – to be in a position to do something about it. And his discussion with Bush and his extraordinarily lightweight advisors might be a painful revelation about why North America can no longer be understood – as Europeans tend to do – as one big place called Amerika.

In order for that to happen, some very Canadian obstacles will have to be overcome. Hockey has popped up, as it always seems to do, in the strangest places. The Toronto Globe and Mail, which had run a very flattering lengthy piece on Ignatieff, ran a much less effusive piece on his main rival and former roommate at the U. of Toronto, Rhodes scholar Bob Rae, who is certainly no dummy, but hardly looks like a jock. He came in a miserable third in the Ontario delegation voting, no doubt because he had once been the socialist premier of Ontario when it got into serious financial problems. The article was highlighted by a photo of a comic-looking Rae in full hockey regalia skating for the Ontario legiskater team. The hockey photos of candidate Ken Dryden, who is given only an outside chance of being prime minister but a very good chance of being Minister of Sports, do not look comical. In fact in the week before the vote, the Montreal Canadiens announced that Dryden’s jersey, along with Quebec icon Serge Savard’s, would be retired and raised to the rafters of the coliseum in Montreal. Guess who gets the Quebec hockey vote. Ignatieff’s announcement that he enjoyed nothing more than having a beer and watching Hockey Night in Canada was met with some skepticism. And to top it off, Belinda Stronach, a top candidate who decided not to run, was identified in a divorce suit by the wife of Maple Leaf tough guy Ti Domi as the other woman who led poor Ti astray. Since Belinda had been married to Norwegian gold-medal speed-skater Olof Johann Koss, she might have given Dryden a run for his money as most experienced candidate on the ice.

Filed Under: Politics, Press

Primary Sidebar

Categories:

  • 2008 (3)
  • abortion (1)
  • Afghanistan (8)
  • Africa (6)
  • Baseball (1)
  • Bobby Jindal (1)
  • Bush/Cheney (6)
  • Canada (93)
  • Carly Fiorina (1)
  • China (9)
  • Chris Christie (1)
  • Collective Bargaining (2)
  • DARFUR (10)
  • Ebola (1)
  • Economy (30)
  • Education (2)
  • Election (16)
  • Election 2008 (35)
  • Elizabeth Warren (1)
  • Employment (1)
  • Environment (14)
  • Erdogan (4)
  • Europe (52)
  • Free Speech (4)
  • Genocide (11)
  • Germany (52)
  • Global Warming (6)
  • Greece (3)
  • Healthcare (12)
  • Hillary Clintom (2)
  • Huckabee (1)
  • Human Rights (9)
  • Immigration (9)
  • Inauguration (1)
  • internatinal Livability (2)
  • International Broadcasting (20)
  • Iran (35)
  • Iraq (62)
  • Israel (4)
  • Labor (1)
  • Lieberman Watch (7)
  • McCain (17)
  • Merkel (4)
  • Middle East (14)
  • NATO (1)
  • nelson (1)
  • North Korea (7)
  • Obama (29)
  • Pakistan (3)
  • Palin (12)
  • PBS NEWSHOUR (1)
  • Police (1)
  • Police brutality (1)
  • Politics (121)
  • Press (126)
  • Public Diplomacy (24)
  • Racism (3)
  • Republican Party (21)
  • Robert Byrd (1)
  • Romney (1)
  • Romney (4)
  • Russia (27)
  • Sports (23)
  • Supreme Copurt (1)
  • Supreme Court (2)
  • syria (3)
  • Taxes (3)
  • Tea Party (8)
  • Terrorism (22)
  • The Bush Watch (3)
  • TRUMP (17)
  • Turkey (7)
  • U.S. Domestic Policy (68)
  • U.S. Foreign Policy (110)
  • Ukraine (3)
  • Uncategorized (158)
  • William Barr (2)
  • Wisconsin Governor (2)

Archives:

  • September 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (3)
  • December 2018 (6)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (4)
  • April 2017 (3)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • October 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (2)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (3)
  • January 2016 (2)
  • December 2015 (1)
  • November 2015 (4)
  • October 2015 (1)
  • September 2015 (3)
  • July 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (1)
  • April 2015 (2)
  • March 2015 (2)
  • February 2015 (2)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (3)
  • November 2014 (2)
  • October 2014 (2)
  • September 2014 (3)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (3)
  • February 2014 (1)
  • January 2014 (1)
  • December 2013 (1)
  • November 2013 (4)
  • October 2013 (1)
  • September 2013 (2)
  • August 2013 (2)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • June 2013 (1)
  • May 2013 (1)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • February 2013 (3)
  • January 2013 (1)
  • December 2012 (2)
  • October 2012 (2)
  • September 2012 (2)
  • July 2012 (2)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • May 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (2)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • January 2012 (2)
  • November 2011 (3)
  • October 2011 (1)
  • September 2011 (3)
  • August 2011 (1)
  • July 2011 (1)
  • June 2011 (3)
  • May 2011 (1)
  • April 2011 (2)
  • March 2011 (3)
  • February 2011 (4)
  • January 2011 (3)
  • December 2010 (3)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • September 2010 (3)
  • August 2010 (3)
  • July 2010 (2)
  • June 2010 (3)
  • May 2010 (3)
  • April 2010 (2)
  • March 2010 (3)
  • February 2010 (4)
  • January 2010 (5)
  • December 2009 (7)
  • November 2009 (3)
  • October 2009 (1)
  • September 2009 (4)
  • August 2009 (2)
  • July 2009 (4)
  • June 2009 (3)
  • May 2009 (3)
  • April 2009 (4)
  • March 2009 (4)
  • February 2009 (4)
  • January 2009 (5)
  • December 2008 (3)
  • November 2008 (3)
  • October 2008 (5)
  • September 2008 (7)
  • August 2008 (5)
  • July 2008 (4)
  • June 2008 (4)
  • May 2008 (2)
  • April 2008 (6)
  • March 2008 (2)
  • February 2008 (4)
  • January 2008 (4)
  • December 2007 (5)
  • November 2007 (6)
  • October 2007 (5)
  • September 2007 (5)
  • August 2007 (7)
  • July 2007 (6)
  • June 2007 (12)
  • May 2007 (7)
  • April 2007 (9)
  • March 2007 (13)
  • February 2007 (12)
  • January 2007 (17)
  • December 2006 (7)
  • November 2006 (26)
  • October 2006 (36)
  • September 2006 (19)
  • August 2006 (6)

Environment

  • Treehugger

General: culture, politics, etc.

  • Sign and Sight
  • Slate Magazine
  • The Christopher Hitchens Web

international Affairs

  • Council on Foreign Relations
  • New York Review of Books

Politics

  • Daily Dish
  • Rolling Stone National Affairs Daily
  • The Hotline
  • The writings of Matt Taibbi
  • TPM Cafe

Public Diplomacy

  • USC Center on Public Diplomacy