Sunday, August 06, 2006

When in doubt, lie

Stephen Harper tries to explain why a ceasefire in Lebanon is suddenly desirable now that it's originated from his American ideological soulmates:
(Harper) said the draft resolution is unlike the unilateral Israeli ceasefire advocated by the Liberal, the NDP and — in his French comments — the Bloc Quebecois.
Which would be an entirely accurate statement, if "unilateral Israeli ceasefire" is code for "something which in no way resembles a unilateral Israeli ceasefire" based on the opposition parties' actual position:
Yesterday the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development passed a motion that called on the government to, “urge an immediate ceasefire by all parties across the Lebanese-Israeli border as expressed by the blue line.”
Or could the confusion be found in statements by the parties themselves? If so, it wouldn't be in the NDP's position, which has consistently included a full ceasefire and a recognition of responsibility by all parties to the conflict. (And from what I've read so far, there isn't much reason to think the results would differ with respect to the Libs or the Bloc.)

Obviously Harper doesn't think much of the intelligence or attention span of Canadians if he's willing to outright lie about the opposition's position in order to pretend to be reasonable. But hopefully Canadians will have something to say about the insult next time they get to judge Harper's job performance. After all, lying to one's employer tends to be a fairly sure means of securing one's dismissal.

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