The major media in big cities suffer from groupthink. I saw this when I worked as a journalist in Toronto and Washington. On any given story, a narrative starts to develop and everybody starts to embrace it. Few people, if anyone, dissent from the concensus.
The groupthink view in the Ottawa press gallery right now seems to be that the Harper government's fortunes are declining. That's why all the stories coming out this week are so damaging, and why the negative coverage will continue: each of them fits neatly into the consensus narrative or helps to confirm old impressions.
Garth Turner booted from caucus: "This is just one more example of how Stephen Harper cannot handle criticism and dissention."
The Clean Air plan: "Expectations were built up, and the government underdelivered. This proves that Harper doesn't really care about the environment. Things are just getting worse and worse for the Conservatives."
Peter MacKay calls Belinda a dog: "Boy, things are looking grim for the Tories, and this outburst is probably a result of the stress of sagging fortunes and bad opinion polls."
UPDATE: Belinda's latest is so offensive. For her to turn this into a partisan issue -- trying to paint this stupid heat-of-the-moment comment as indicative of Conservatives' disregard for women -- is beyond the pale.
UPDATE II: Olivia Chow takes the cake. (See video "Female MPs discuss the comment.") Brace yourselves: she actually linked the dog remark to "domestic violence" -- wait for it -- "sometimes resulting in death." But it gets better. She then tried to tie this kind of "aggressive attitude" to our involvement in Afghanistan. This is just silly. By the way, Conservative MP Helena Guergis put in a good performance.
UPDATE III: On Don Newman's show tonight, apparently Greg Weston from the Toronto Sun noted that Don Martin dined with Belinda last night, and she told Martin she didn't care about the comment. So I guess she had quite a change of heart today.
(Hopefully last) UPDATE IV: The National Post hits the nail on the head.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 4:27 PM
