Chantal Hebert plays the harridan today chastising the media for abrogating their responsibility by not truly reporting on the seriousness of Jack Layton's cancer.  But this last sentence makes me think that she is trying, on a subconscious level at least, to expiate her sins for mostly giving Harper a free pass for the past 5 years:

Some lessons are learned the hard way. One of the harder ones of the 2011 political year is that the media, when it looks the other way rather than pursue unpleasant, unpopular but yet relevant avenues are really not doing anyone a service, least of all the voters they have a duty to inform.

There are the irretrievably stupid columnists who will parrot every lie the Conservatives put out there.  Then there are the ones like Hebert.  Ready to take a shot at the Liberals because they had been in office so long.  These water carriers of convenience are well informed and had the measure of Harper prior to 2006.  But they turned a blind eye to these faults.  In Hebert's case the venom she directed at Dion might have a tinge of tribalism to it.  But she reveled in piling on Martin and Ignatieff as well.  All of this played into Harper's vote suppression strategy.


Now there seems to be an expectation that we will forget the previous cheerleading if Hebert and her ilk act surprised that the Conservatives are just as childishly undemocratic and full of right wing hate for Canada's institutions as they always have been.


But they have made their bed and history will make them lie in it.  As historians dissect how one of the world's leading nations was systematically pulled apart from within, the role of the media in enabling Harper will fill several volumes.Recommend this Post