MI:"On a day when we've got record bankruptcies, we've got unemployment skyrocketing, all this government can think of doing is running attack ads on me," Ignatieff said."This is the old style of politics. We're in the middle of a serious economic crisis. This government needs to grow up and do its job properly."
I know you have been out of the country for a long time and are not familiar with our traditions and norms, but the Government of Canada and The Conservative Party of Canada are 2 different entities. The CPC, which has support and donations that Liberals can only dream of, are the ones that put out the ads.
So Michael just to clarify, it was not the government that put out these ads, it was not government money which paid for the ads, and it wasn't government employees that created the ads. Just helping you do YOUR job properly as the leader of the opposition.
One more thing Michael about this quote were you said the Liberal party "has not and will not run attack ads".
It might be just me but the term blatant lie comes to mind here. Perhaps you were out of the country but The Campaign of Fear™ against the conservatives has been, and I am sure will continue to be, the number one tactic of the LPC. A couple of examples can be seen here, here, here, and in case you forgot about this bit of Liberal love that got free air time thanks to the MSM in Canada.
Just another lie to add to that long and ever growing list of lies, half truths and flip flops.
A quick update: The NDP were the first other party to produce anti Ignatieff ads, but the very first ads were produced by Liberals themselves in the 2006 leadership convention. Does "Anyone but Iggy" or better yet, "Stop Iggy" ring a bell?
“We don’t do that kind of politics in the Liberal party.”
Thursday, May 14, 2009
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42 comments:
On a day when...Isn't that how Don Newman opens each brawwwwwwwdcast on CBC's "Politics?" Hmmmm.
Ted, stay on topic. Iggy just flat out lied and you come over with a prepared cut and paste on anything and everything but the subject posted.
Do you get this stuff from the Liberal war room?
Comment deleted!
Ted - the two PMO staffers had taken an unpaid leave of absence from their GOVERNMENT jobs to work on the Conservative PARTY truth ad campaign.
Get that!!!!
You always seem to leave out the salient points. (are you SURE you are not Scott Reid?)
No, he is not Scott Reid. Reid stayed loyal to the Liberals under Dion's leadership while Ted in a hissy fit totally abandoned the Liberal party because his boy Ignatieff lost the leadership in 2006.
Come to think of it, Ignatieff has never actually won a real nomination race in his life.
What does he mean, old politics? Like two minutes ago, since that is the attention span of the average voter it seems. Attack ads are Liberal 101, not to mention the N.D.P.
I am not impressed with the ads and think we should emphasize how respected P.M. Harper is in the world and how much he brought to all the summits recently, but to say the Liberals aren't into and will never be into attack ads is just ludicrous.
Your censorship and worry about the truth is very revealing Aardvark.
You say Ignatieff is blurring the line between government and party, and I give several public, verifiable examples of how the Conservatives have been blurring the lines themselves. How is that not on topic?
Guess you can't let THAT truth get out too far, eh?
Anonymous,
Attack ads are old news.
Attack ads outside of an election campaign? That is new. Well, actually it's not so new for the Conservatives since the Cons took the unprecedented step of doing that to Dion outside of an election as well.
Personal character assassinations and questions of an Opposition Leader's patriotism and dedication to country? That is very new. Even the worst of the horribly insulting Liberal ads of 2006 only tried to scare you about what they imagined Harper would do when in government. They never attacked him personally or said he was a bad guy.
The Conservatives lowered the bar. Once again.
Aardvark,
Speaking of personal attacks, what gives with the lie about me abandoning the Liberal Party? I will tackle Harper head on, but I haven't said ever made any personal attack on you or other commenters. What gives? Why make stuff up like that? I worked as hard for Dion as anyone else other than hardcore Dionistas.
This is a rather low and unfortunate response to my comments about Harper, in addition to your censorship.
Ted are you claiming that the Liberals have never attacked Harper personally?
Get real.
Sorry Ted - I just saw Steve McKinnon the Power Point using the exact same talking points you have cut and pasted throughout the blog-o-sphere.
Are you Steve McKinnon or just someone impersonating him?
If you can reasonably stay on topic there will be no problem Ted. Coming over here and posting a bunch of easily dis proven and off topic spin amounts to nothing but trolling.
On your attack ad comment: Do you really believe that the Liberals have "never attacked" PM Harper personally? You have blinders on my friend. Also there has never been a valid reason to bring up the dedication to country of an opposition leader before because never before have we had one that has lived out of the country for 27+years and missed out on ALL the events that helped shape this country for 30 years!
On point number 3: When did you stop posting on your own blog and why have you now seemed to come out of the woodwork in support of Ignatieff? If you would like to point me to the many posts/comments you made in support of Dion prior to the last federal election I would be happy to take a look.
Oh for gawds sake, vote Ted off the island.
He's gone hysterical now that his magnificent actor leader has to take a hit.
Ted is scared that Iffy will once again cave under pressure, and crawl under a rock.
What the H would Iffy know about old politics?
He's be an MP, for 3 very short years.
He still hasn't learned that if you keep threatening an election, you are going to get one.
Maybe Iffy read about politics somewhere, and is gathering material to write a book.
Anon, same attacks Liberals used in 2004, 2006, 2008.
But if Liberals want to play catch up, and now put out an ad with those quotes,
they can save their money and just go on to youtube.
The ads are there.
Very good post.
By trying to say that the Government and the CPC are one and the same, Iggy is either showing his total ignorance of Canadian politics, or else he is being intellectually dishonest and disingenuous.
Joanne, Ignatieff might be being disingenuous on the Government and the CPC being one and the same, but on the Liberal attack ad history he looks to be out right lying.
Ted and the rest of the Liberal apologists keep calling them attack ads. They are simply ads displaying what Iggy said on various occasions and in various countries. He said what he said and he needs to be held accountable for those views. Of course anything that does not support a Liberal point of view in Canada is considered an attack ad. The Liberals have done a hatchet job on Harper since he became leader first of the Alliance and then the Conservatives. I guess that's ok because they are Liberals. Iggy thinks by speaking in tongues he can fool people into thinking he knows what he is talking about. We know better.
This is the first time, not in an election period, I can remember, that CPC ads were run here.
Every half hour! On CTV!
Wonder if the LPC thought the CPC wouldn't dare run truth ads now?
Maybe they don't even have any ready to go....
I wonder why Iggy and Ted seem so surprised at the truth ads.
It was at the end of February 2009 when Ignatieff on the subject of attack ads said this "I have absolutely zero illusions about what's coming our way."
Oh and for Ted and anyone else out there it was the NDP who first produced truth ads against Ignatieff.
Actually, I would think that I,Iggy would be quite please with all the attention.
I found the ads to be informative. Not about the years out of Canada, already knew that and the other stuff.
But its the truth that he said those things.
Raising the GST.
Raising taxes.
Creating a carbon tax (but not campaigning on it).
I'm waiting for Duceppe to get in on the act soon, he's pretty good at getting Iggy to make a knee-jerk response on the Quebec file.
What happened to IRuby's press conference?
Iffy.me told reporters he was going to address the ads in Toronto.
Did that boot IRuby's presser?
CTV goes live, loses the audio feed, goes live, Iffy.me says the 'I will not divide the country', boring 3 minutes, CTV cuts to other news.....
Aardvark:
I thought my points were dead on topic - illustrating that the Conservatives have blurred the lines by using government for their own partisan purposes time and time again, sometimes even having to apologize for it and reimburse the government for costs. But it is your blog and your rules so it is entirely within your rights to set different rules for Liberal commenters and for others. Disappointing, but within your rights. If anyone can find an example of an advertisement issued by the Liberals that attacked Harper personally instead of scaremongering on what they wanted you to think he would do in government, I`ll be happy to correct myself.
As for blogging, I blogged for Dion for a year and half and then gave up on blogging. Had some but not a lot to do with Dion. More with the fact that I had a third baby, new house and more important things. I don`t see how that is in any way relevant to anything, but if it is your choice to make personal attacks on the messenger of a commenter who has never said anything negative about you and ignore the message, again, your blog, your choice to do so, however unfortunate and disappointing.
www.ignatieff.me is brilliant!
Anonymous 4:40
These are the lowest form of attack ads we`ve seen in Canada. That is not to say there are not others that are as bad, like the guns in our street nonesense, but there are none worse and none that have made stuff up as badly as this.
You say it is simply quoting him? Please show me where he said he was just visiting? He has repeatedly clarified how strongly he opposes torture, yet they make the falacious claim he supports torture. Low grade lies I expect from socialist university students, not a respected national institution like the Conservative Party of Canada. The kiddies are still in charge of the war room, they just have better technology skills.
The fun thing for Liberals and where this looks to be backfiring is in three parts:
1. In this economic environment, Canadians don't have too much patience for this waste of government time and energy and focus. It shows where their priorities lie: with protecting their own jobs, not ours.
2. people who have not lived and worked their entire lives here - Canadians working abroad, military, immigrants - are pretty put out by these ads and these attacks on patriotism.
3. by using quotes from Iggy going back as far as 1991(!) to attack his character, they have opened the door to the Liberals hauling out all of Harper's anti-Canada, separatist firewall, anti-Quebec, anti-Maritimes, anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism, etc. comments - all the stuff he's been trying to hide and the press has kept under wraps for the last two elections.
This is going to be good.
its iffy.me fault. if he was truly a sharp political mind he would have learned from the mistakes that they made by not defending dion and letting the CPC define him. he has been dogged by media on both the left and the right for his lack of policy stances and then trying to repeal those very few things he has said. i think that the LPC is truly devoid of any true leaders, so bad in fact that they have to import their leaders now. i guess that explains why they continually have to play the "strong team" card. they have no imagination. just waiting for a tagline "the land is strong".
Iffy.me has a strong team alright.
His team consists of all the other losers of the last Lib leadership race.
Only the winner of the race is not on the team.
Oh, and Goodale (who threw 6 Western Canadian farmers in jail) and McCallum (red nose drives a Chev)...
It's official Ted will now be known as ITED..got that. Clearly the Liberals are scrambling now and the ads are doing exactly what they're supposed to do...plant doubt.
Oh and ITED you should check the Liblog entries for today and find the one where Morton posts the truth about how effective the ads will be in making IMichael look like IDion part 2.
Iggy's on his way out.
So I take it oh brave Anonymous, that you can't find a single example of a Liberal advertisement attacking Harper's character and are, like the Conservative desperation that has driven them to such scurrilous and false ads, scrambling to change the channel from my response to petty name calling. So very very Conservative of you.
The smell around here is very familiar to me, very much like the smell of the Martin team and its supporters in the dying months of his Prime Ministership. They thought they'd rule forever as well and that all that was needed was just the right negative ad. The Conservative were smart, then, and realized that Canadians cared more about substance than attack ads. Remember this ad. How the tables have turned so completely.
Wow all these false accusations about this ad being an attack ad.It,s a truth ad and nothing but the truth ad because it does not attack anyone,but tells the truth about someone.But you Libbers cant handle the truth can you.
The Liberals have been attacking Harper from day 1 and so have the Cons been attacking whomever happens to be the Liberal leader. That is politics.
To claim that the Liberals are above this type of thing, or have never done it in the past makes you look overly partisan and foolish Ted.
ITed, your boy is in over his head.
Iffy.me thinks he is going to let the recesssion do the job for him.
But the truth ads will draw him out.
And that smell is you stinkin' up the joint ITed.
Iggy and his Lib Coalition don't have to run attack ads. He's got 24- hour CTV/CBC where he can attack Harper and the Conservatives free-of-charge.
STill nothing, eh, folks? No example of a Liberal ad that attacks Harper personally, attacks him as a person?
You could keep looking, but I wouldn't bother since no such ad exists. The Liberals would not stoop as low as the Conservatives like that.
Worse for you, there is already a backlash starting for launching personal character assassination ads instead of focusing on governing.
Dear Iffy.me
Your response to the truth ads is lame,
here's the response to your response:
“Canadians who chose to work outside the country don't pretend that Canada is not their country,” (Dimitri Soudas)
Iffy.me was never proud to be Canadian, until he wanted to rule a nation.
That will teach me to go out for a few hours.
Ted, you are a troll. Your entire purpose is to distract, divert or confuse just enough to take the heat off your boy Iggy and you seem to show up with your spin whenever a nerve has been hit. Playing the victim card is also a nice touch but really Ted I am not buying it or going to play into it.
Back to the topic. So Ted, did Ignatieff lie about the Liberals never using attack ads? Somehow I doubt I will see an honest answer from you on that one.
I do however appreciate the admission from you about the scaremongering done by the Liberals on PM Harper and the Conservatives. It is all they have had in their playbook since 2004 and it shows.
Obviously you don't know the definition of a troll Aardvark. And as for distracting and avoiding, nice bait and switch on my comments. You'd make a good PMO staffer.
Have the Liberals produced a negative ad attacking Harper's character and him personally? No, never. Have the Liberals produced a negative ad attacking Harper's lousy and flip flopping record outside an election period? No, they have not. Will they? You betcha.
With all the contraversy from liberals re the truth ads, are those libs trying to tell us that MIMI is/was lying when he said all those things. If those ads don't show MIMI telling it like he believed, it means the libs think he is out there lying to foreign media and press. Can't have it both ways.
Libs say the ads are wrong so that means there is a lot of evidence of MIMI lying for the past 34 years.
And yes, MIMI supported the Iraq war and torture. That is before he changed his mind.
Ted I notice that you did not answer my question about Iggy lying.
THAT WAS AND STILL REMAINS THE SUBJECT.
Bait and switch my pet mule.
As for your ad question: Implying that someone is inherently evil, soldiers in or streets, going to take away the right to choose etc is an attack on character. You in typical troll fashion keep moving the goal posts now adding the 'outside the writ period' angle to again cloud the issue.
As for what the Liberals are going to do, Ignatieff has reiterated that they will not go negative or be divisive. You must not have got the memo.
Will this turn out to be another Iggy lie? You betcha.
Like I said, this is all so familiar, Harper's panicky reaction to plummeting support (not just in polls, he is down $500K in donations in the last quarter and, worse, down 5000 contributors compared to the Libs being up $900K and up 5000 contributors), the parties desperate bait and switch attempt with character assassination ads, your reactions here... it all feels like the Liberals in late 2005. So very disconnected with what Canadians care about right now.
Penalty is over. We're back on the ice and the grown ups are going to take back this government from this juvenile party.
Have a nice long weekend folks.
Have a good long weekend everyone, that includes you too Ted.
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