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Video: Worst interview ever?

posted at 11:45 am on October 10, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Well, no. This is the worst interview ever. This is merely the worst interview given by a major politician. The gentleman with the apparent head injury here is Stephane Dion, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party and would-be successor to Stephen Harper as PM, and he’s very upset indeed that his friends on the media would sandbag him with an election approaching by running the unedited footage. See Kate at Small Dead Animals for more on that. Exit quotation: “That outrage has less to do with what happened to Dion than it does the fact that Canadians just caught a glimpse of how this business operates, and they don’t like it.”


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Comment pages: 1 2

Thank God they weren’t interviewing Celine Dion!

Oh, the horror. The horror.

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on October 10, 2008 at 11:49 AM

Tuesday? No, Wednesday, fool. LOL!!

bloggless on October 10, 2008 at 11:50 AM

Biden, is that you?

lorien1973 on October 10, 2008 at 11:50 AM

This is the guy who named his dog Kyoto after the global warming treaty.

Mark1971 on October 10, 2008 at 11:52 AM

“Uh, uh, hold on now, I can’t hear myself…”

CP on October 10, 2008 at 11:52 AM

I love sausage.

danking70 on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

I’ll bet D. Rywall is voting for this guy.

AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

I learned more from O’Reilly interviewing the I like turtles kid.

lorien1973 on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

What would you do differently from the current Prime Minister?

Gee, that is a difficult question to understand.

rbj on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

Another reason why to avoid eating “poutine” when visiting Canada. I mean, look what the stuff does to the brain!

pilamaye on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

I realize Ed got lots of credit a few years ago for giving publicity to some Canadian political proceedings that were under some sort of gag order, but still when I see posts like this, I gotta ask MY exit question:

Who the F cares about Canadian politics?

dhawbake on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

What a moron. If this is a representation of what Canada has to offer in a citizen, what an abysmal thing! Dear God!
I am still hanging on to an optimistic vision of the true Canadian citizen. If all Canadians were to see this on TV & THEN vote for this guy, then maybe we’d better understand them.
Sounded like an Obama without his teleprompter!

Badger40 on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

I don’t think he understands English.

Sue on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

I blame Canada…

BKennedy on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

Who the F cares about Canadian politics?

dhawbake on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

Just guessing here but “Canadians” comes to mind.

highhopes on October 10, 2008 at 11:55 AM

Wow.

Now if only we could get the unedited footage of Obama and Palin doing interviews.

ClintACK on October 10, 2008 at 11:55 AM

I don’t think he understands English.

Sue on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

Or economics, which puts him the same league as OBambi.

AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:55 AM

This guy would fit in well with the US congress.

boomer on October 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM

He’ll probably win anyways.

Socialists are winning everywhere! Yay!

lorien1973 on October 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM

I’ll bet D. Rywall is voting for this guy.
AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

I thought the same, but Rywall was pretty harsh on the guy a few weeks ago. I think the Liberals (party, not ideology) are growing weary of his ‘leadership.’

Slublog on October 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM

Headline: Liberal intellectual request mulligan

titus_pullo on October 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM

If he expected ’special’ treatment, he should have been interviewed by the U.S. MSM. But it is interesting that the Canadian media feels that their promises are worthless — “We initially indicated that [the false starts would] not be [aired].” So they basically lied to the Canadian Liberal Party.

Good for them.

rmgraha on October 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM

Successor? Harper is poised to slaughter him.

lodge on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

What they’ll say is, “Well it costs too much money,” but you know what? It would cost, about… It — it — it would cost about the same as what we would spend… It… Over the course of 10 years it would cost what it would costs us… (nervous laugh) All right. Okay. We’re going to… It… It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about — hold on one second. I can’t hear myself. But I’m glad you’re fired up, though. I’m glad. Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer.

Oh yeah. He’ll get along just fine with President Obama bin Biden.

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

Conservatives in Canada were thrilled when the Liberals took Dion as their leader. Otherwise we are looking at media almost as far in the tank for the liberals as your media is for Obama and a higher useful idiot percentage in the electorate.

Our election was called for October 14th in early September and the Conservative’s lead has dropped from 40/25 to 31/27 already. About 2 or 3 points are expected due to the media and the rest is due to the financial collapse (as in the US a bad economy hurts the incumbents).

This footage may have saved us.

gh on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

Yeah, but did he start his political career in the home of a terrorist?

I’m sorry, just a friendly game of one-upmanship on my part directed at our neighbors to the north. Heh.

anuts on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

So essentially, his plan is the same as Barack Obama’s.

edgehead on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

Before Allah shows up to correct dhawbake, I’ll gently point out to dhawbake that, in fact, Allahpundit wrote this post, not Ed. Yes, Ed did spring to some prominence through his exposing some Canadian shenanigans, but in fact, this post isn’t his.

It’s still a good one though.

Vanceone on October 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM

so you know how we always say it would be refreshing for politicians to ignore those idiotic cutesy questions like at the youtube townhalls and answer substantively about the issues? well, the reason that drooling idiot in the video above me is going to be prime minister next week is because the current prime minister, when asked, and i swear i’m not making this up, what he learned about canadian politics from his pet cats, basically said, “well, that’s a silly question, let me move on to discuss something really important and substantive.” and with that, even though it was probably the greatest answer ever, he died in the polls.

AdrianG on October 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM

Well, no. This is the worst interview ever.

True true true.

My wife and I use that all the time. Most people don’t get it.

BadgerHawk on October 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM

Obama’s choice for Sec of Education?

hippie_chucker on October 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM

Don’t worry, I’m sure he went to McGill as a undergrad then, to McGill Law. As a lib, no matter how dumb he comes off he has to be smarter than you and I, that just how the universe work.

Lance Murdock on October 10, 2008 at 11:59 AM

I’ll bet D. Rywall is voting for this guy.

AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

He won’t admit it, but you can bet on it.
*
He was over thinking the question.
I get the same queasy feeling when Couric was asking Palin questions, there is always a sub text to the question, is it a trap? or just a stupid question.

right2bright on October 10, 2008 at 12:00 PM

I wonder how many times this happened with Obama, but nobody has the guts to broadcast it.

Vashta.Nerada on October 10, 2008 at 12:01 PM

I don’t think he understands English.

Sue on October 10, 2008 at 11:54 AM

It’s weird but thats the impression I got. The question seemed like a pretty straight forward hypothetical

titus_pullo on October 10, 2008 at 12:02 PM

It’s pretty clear the French guy doesn’t really understand tenses in English– the “if you had been” kind of thing.

On the other hand, you’d have thought (there go those tenses again) that Canada would want a fluent English speaker as PM.

Maybe here we all better start practicing our Spanish tenses. Multi-culturalism, ain’t it grand.

Note: “ain’t” is English slang, meaning isn’t. It’s used for literary effect, and indicates familiarity with the majority culture uh something never mind.

JiangxiDad on October 10, 2008 at 12:02 PM

haha Shows how stupid all liberals are!

becki51758 on October 10, 2008 at 12:03 PM

Jeez, guess this guy needs to look up “hypothetical” in the dictionary. The concept isn’t that hard to understand

thisaintnopicnic on October 10, 2008 at 12:03 PM

Bilingualism to blame?

I mean, the guy clearly is french-canadian.

Maybe his english isn’t that great.

There has to be SOME reason. heh

dc84123 on October 10, 2008 at 12:06 PM

I’ll bet D. Rywall is voting for this guy.

AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

Rywall has been MIA. Did The Boss ban him? She should post a “banned” list.

Mr_Magoo on October 10, 2008 at 12:06 PM

Canaduh will be muslim in two generations….I think the non-muslim birth rate is negative LOL….remember the “population crisis” we were all propagandized with in the late 60s/early 70s?

Little did we know that was another leftist scam.

Let’s roll.

ex-Democrat on October 10, 2008 at 12:07 PM

I’ll bet D. Rywall is voting for this guy.

AubieJon on October 10, 2008 at 11:53 AM

I’ll bet this guy’s HA user ID is Dave_Ryall…

CC

CapedConservative on October 10, 2008 at 12:07 PM

The sad thing is; this is probably Dion’s best performance since becoming Liberal leader. Dumber than a sack of hammers and only half the personality.

landshark on October 10, 2008 at 12:11 PM

I’m a big Conservatives supporter and will vote Conservative, and I think Dion is doing a terrible job as the leader of the Liberal party (which is good, since it makes Harper’s job easier :)), but I’m gonna give him a bit of credit.

He wasn’t entirely oblivious to what was asked of him, and he did try to respond. He tried to say that had he been a PM a few years ago he would’ve had a plan to deal with the situation now, i.e. Harper doesn’t… that’s what I got from him mumbling, anyway.

Of course, I disagree, and I think that despite the TSX dropping almost as fast as the Dow Jones, we don’t have a credit crisis up here like you have down in the states, or in the EU where governments are injecting liquidity into their markets. We don’t have that, we don’t have a need for any “rescue” giveaways in the tens of billions, and things are not so bad. Whether that’s thanks to Harper or not, I don’t know, but Dion is just a trash talker who’s trying to score political points. I don’t believe him (when I actually manage to understand him).

AlexB on October 10, 2008 at 12:11 PM

How do you know he is the would be successor of Harper. We have not had our elections yet. Where did you get that assumption?

mariloubaker on October 10, 2008 at 12:12 PM

He has been talking to Dodd or Frank or maybe just stupid.

foxone on October 10, 2008 at 12:13 PM

Still not the worst “Dion” to come out of Canada. I think you all know who I’m talking about.

RightWinged on October 10, 2008 at 12:15 PM

I heard the interviewer ask a what if question and Mr. Dion said

Ha. I like turtles.

Plain as day.

captivated_dem on October 10, 2008 at 12:17 PM

Is this a Monty Python sketch?

LoL

rockmom on October 10, 2008 at 12:21 PM

I think this is a Karl Rove experiment gone bad. He practiced his first versions of mind control by implanting a device through the nose, up through the brain. Obviously permanent damage was done to this liberal brain since the video clearly shows a disturbance in the neuron connections dealing with time-space continuum. Especially when Dion clearly does not know the meaning of today – or as they say in French, “aujourd’hui”

Sergei on October 10, 2008 at 12:21 PM

I’m voting Harper,and the Conservative Party,MP
Cameron Ross!

Dave Rywall would vote for this idiot, Dion,and btw,
don’t for a second, buy into,well ya know,he’s probably
having a hard time in the French-English translation!!!

Heres a few more points,the Conservative Party has dropped
our good and service’s tax(GST)down by 2 percent,and wants
to increase personal exemptions!

Dion’s Liberal’s voted against the GST and increased personal exemptions!!!!

Now,the ad playing in Ontario,Canada(for some Liberal trolls,its not Ontario,California,I’m referring to)has
President Bush,standing beside Harper,and according to
the Liberals,Harper is carrying out Bush’s policies

Thats how NUTS,OUR IDIOT LIBERALS ARE IN CANADA!!!!!!!!

All say it again,I would rather be waterboarded,than be
tortured by Canadian Politics!!haha.

canopfor on October 10, 2008 at 12:22 PM

What a stupid question by a journalist.

Sure, Dion doesn’t understand English perfectly, but the question is highly confusing for anyone. I don’t think the journalist knows what he is asking.

indythinker on October 10, 2008 at 12:22 PM

To be fair, right after the reporter asked the question the first time, Dion asked if he meant starting two and a half years ago (understanding, I believe, the question as it was intended). The reporter then says, no, today. That’s where the confusion begins. The language barrier doesn’t help.

MikeZero on October 10, 2008 at 12:24 PM

The interview question was very badly phrased, so I sympathize with the Liberal Party dude. It shouldn’t have been difficult for the interviewer to move more clearly toward “What would you have done in Harper’s place” or “What would you do now if you were in Harper’s place” at the other extreme. The question squats incoherently between those two, and it was fair, IMO, for the victim to expect a better question.

crowtreboot on October 10, 2008 at 12:24 PM

BOOOOOOOSH’s fault…..hilarious…….nice to know Canada is getting dumbed down as fast as our society….

SDarchitect on October 10, 2008 at 12:25 PM

Dion’s English is terrible, and despite his claims that he has been working really hard on improving it since becoming the Liberal Party leader I don’t know of anyone that has seen one iota of improvement. When the election campaign began he started using some excuse about a “hearing impairment” that he’s had for years…funny how he never mentioned it before.

He’ll never be Prime Minister of Canada – you cannot have the leader of the country not able to speak the language of 75% of the population.

And as usual, many/most of the media make excuses for him, and the taxpayer funded CBC has even had one of their “journalists” basically acting like one of his campaigners…absolutely revolting, disgusting waste of my tax dollars.

Paradox Drive on October 10, 2008 at 12:26 PM

Hilarious! The ultimate softball question – where one gets to use perfect hindsight to flog the predecessor – left this dolt speechless.

T J Green on October 10, 2008 at 12:32 PM

And our MSM (French and English) is spinning in overdrive for the Liberals saying that it shows anti-French bigotry because it’s mocking Dion’s (lack of) English-language skills and they’re attacking the electronic-journalists who released the unedited tape all to build up the sympathy factor. And when the Conservative Harper says that it shows the guy has no economic plans, it is being presented as a vicious, personal attack that shows how desperate the Conservatives are.

andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 12:32 PM

As a recovering Canadian, it gives me great joy to watch the jewel of francophone Quebecois intelligentsia go all Forrest Gump over a simple question.

You would think that an “academic” national political leader would have the super official Canadian language down pat. Zoot allures, cie la vie!

He makes Chrétien sound like Dennis Miller.

epluribusunum on October 10, 2008 at 12:33 PM

Must have eaten some bad brie.

LimeyGeek on October 10, 2008 at 12:36 PM

Still not the worst “Dion” to come out of Canada. I think you all know who I’m talking about.

Ra-a-a-a-cist!!!!
8^)

andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 12:36 PM

The interview question was very badly phrased, so I sympathize with the Liberal Party dude. It shouldn’t have been difficult for the interviewer to move more clearly toward “What would you have done in Harper’s place” or “What would you do now if you were in Harper’s place” at the other extreme. The question squats incoherently between those two, and it was fair, IMO, for the victim to expect a better question.

crowtreboot on October 10, 2008 at 12:24 PM

I understood the question each time it was asked and I would hope someone who wants to run a country could do likewise.

HawaiiLwyr on October 10, 2008 at 12:37 PM

BTW, Harper’s degree is in economics; Dion is a former sociology professor trained in Europe and with a French-French mother. (As contrasted with French-Canadian.)

andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 12:40 PM

A strong argument for English-only.
His best answer might have been: “I am zorry, but I am too – how you zay? – stupid…to answer your question.”

whitetop on October 10, 2008 at 12:40 PM

The guy does have a bit of a point. If he was, hypothetically, prime minister starting today or starting 2 1/2 years ago, he’d have completely different answers. And he’s also ESL.

jdpaz on October 10, 2008 at 12:41 PM

Rywall has been MIA. Did The Boss ban him? She should post a “banned” list. – Mr_Magoo on October 10, 2008 at 12:06 PM

Per the terms of our bet – which he lost – Dave is voluntarily MIA until October 18.

ManlyRash on October 10, 2008 at 12:42 PM

Dion is a former sociology professor trained in Europe and with a French-French mother. (As contrasted with French-Canadian.) – andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 12:40 PM

Cheese eating surrender monkeys.

ManlyRash on October 10, 2008 at 12:45 PM

Inspector Clouseau has resurfaced. Sacre bleu!

whitetop on October 10, 2008 at 12:47 PM

ManlyRash,

Bet?

I missed it. Please explain.

MikeZero on October 10, 2008 at 12:49 PM

After explaining how stupid the interviewee was by his lack of understanding of their simply phrased gotcha questions, the interviewer deigns to

“CTV believes that we owe it to you….”

…Canadian media seems to have the same self-celebratory attitude that ours have down her in the States…unelected, no mandate, but “serving” the people….

…mind you, it would’ve helped had they translated the question into French for this nimrod…nimrod, I say, because being PM of Canada does involve some fluency in English, which this guy seems to lack, and — together with some monumental thickness between the ears — seems to be the problem here.

…maybe if they’d've printed the questions, in French, on a baseball bat and hit him with it….

Puritan1648 on October 10, 2008 at 12:50 PM

Well, that depends on what the definition of “is” is…hmmmmm

d1carter on October 10, 2008 at 12:50 PM

Okay a couple of things.

I’m not voting for this guy.

But ….

Do overs in taped interviews are common practice. It doesn’t happen every interview, but usually a journalist will allow an interviewee to start over if there is confusion and you know the tape is going to make for bad TV.

The thing is, this is the mother of all mulligans. It’s so bad that it belongs at the end of a Burt Reynolds Dom DeLuise flick.

All 3 times, the reporter allows Dion to start over and agrees with starting the interview over. So it was kind of sleazy for them to use the footage.

What probably happened is that after the interview they realized that what was supposed to be edited out had more news value than anything from the interview (I think this is the first Hot Air item on the Canadian election). This is because Dion’s language barrier has been the elephant in the room).

The bigger joke is the spin on this.

The Liberals are alleging it was due to Dion’s hearing problem. (I call B.S. He clearly heard the question, he just over analyzed the timeline.)

And the Tories are saying it’s because he didn’t have an answer, also B.S. (He may not have had a realistic answer but eventually he had an answer).

CanadianGuy on October 10, 2008 at 12:53 PM

Bet? I missed it. Please explain. – MikeZero on October 10, 2008 at 12:49 PM

Rywall announced that Obama would be leading McCain by ten points or more on October 3. I called him on it and asked for a wager: loser leaves HA for good. He chickened out and opted for a 2 week hiatus. I stuck to my side of wager and accepted his: if he won I’d leave HA for good and if I won, he’d leave for 2 weeks.

I won.

ManlyRash on October 10, 2008 at 12:53 PM

Successor? Harper is poised to slaughter him.

lodge on October 10, 2008 at 11:57 AM

…I hope so…otherwise, we’ll have this Pepe le Pew on our northern border….

…come to think of it, I owe Pepe le Pew and the whole Warner Bros. stable an apology…fictional talking animals have more on the ball than this guy….

…say “toujour, l’amour”, bubba!

Puritan1648 on October 10, 2008 at 12:58 PM

MSM spin here.

andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 12:58 PM

I wonder if Joe Biden will steal this also and use it?

Jdripper on October 10, 2008 at 1:02 PM

No matter how the question was phrased (and it was an easy one) any serious guy running to be a leader of a country should have had some boilerplate answer ready to go. Even if he didn’t answer the question directly he could have spouted something intelligible.

This guy is just another elitest university tool! How the Lieberals ever chose him beats me. He spoke gobbledy-gook then and he still does to this day. Usually the leftard media edits that out for him, but this one got away on them.

rigdown on October 10, 2008 at 1:03 PM

NUANCE – French-Canadian style!

wildweasel on October 10, 2008 at 1:20 PM

HawaiiLwyr:

I understood the question each time it was asked and I would hope someone who wants to run a country could do likewise.

I doubt you understood the question, since the question is ambiguous and the interviewer’s explanations sustained the ambiguity.

Simply insisting that you understood is unconvincing from where I’m sitting. Would you have answered in terms of being in Harper’s place over the past two years or in terms of your actions starting that day if you were in Harper’s place?
Or both? :)

crowtreboot on October 10, 2008 at 1:33 PM

Having learned another language and having been questioned in the one that isn’t my native language, I sympathize with Dion. That interview should never have been released.

under on October 10, 2008 at 1:36 PM

When you spend your whole life in “Academia” instead of the real world, simple questions can be very difficult to “understand”.

“If you were prime minister today, what would you do differently” is NOT a confusing question. Unless you can only think in complicated abstracts, like only liberals can.

cdn.infidel on October 10, 2008 at 1:39 PM

I can understand how someone could misinterpret the question that way. Maybe he is native French speaking and not so strong in English, no? I dunno, I didn’t think it was that bad.

RW Wacko on October 10, 2008 at 1:42 PM

Dion is what a consensus gets you. He basically got the position because he wasn’t Bob “I ran Ontario into the ground” Rae or Michael “I took a black woman’s seat on orders from the party, and I just moved into the riding from Harvard” Ignatieff.

As for the Language ‘issue’, Harper went to the trouble of learning french, and seems to speak better french than Dion. Dion, doesn’t seem to speak well in either language.

Canadian Imperialist Running Dog on October 10, 2008 at 1:44 PM

The guy does have a bit of a point. If he was, hypothetically, prime minister starting today or starting 2 1/2 years ago, he’d have completely different answers. And he’s also ESL.

jdpaz on October 10, 2008 at 12:41 PM

Missing the point. A real leader would have taken control of the question, answering both cases with confidence. Dion looks like an incompetent junior salesman here.

Count to 10 on October 10, 2008 at 1:47 PM

I keep some Canadian coins around, just in case that country ever makes the transition into a respectable Republic.

What are my odds?

Should I buy more?

Mcguyver on October 10, 2008 at 1:50 PM

A sample of headline links, spinning for liberal (and Liberal) trolls’ sympathy:

+Don Martin: A Dion gaffe that shows Harper’s mean streak
+Dion criticizes Harper, CTV over interview
+Tories pounce on Dion tape
+Watch The Video: Dion’s three false starts
+Liberals slam Tories for ‘shamelessly’ attacking Dion

andycanuck on October 10, 2008 at 1:50 PM

Can we start again?

MadisonConservative on October 10, 2008 at 2:03 PM

Dion is a Liberal,he botched the question,its not a
English-French translation flubb!

I think any Liberal,and boy, Dion is a shining example,
certainly doesn’t need defending,especially how the
Liberal Democratic Party has crashed the global economy!

On a side note though,with the debauchery of the economy,
the price of a barrel of oil is dropping,a hem!!

canopfor on October 10, 2008 at 2:06 PM

He’ll never be Prime Minister of Canada – you cannot have the leader of the country not able to speak the language of 75% of the population….
Paradox Drive on October 10, 2008 at 12:26 PM

I have to disagree PD, Jean Chretien mangled both Official Languages and won re-election.

Did you know English is a controlled substance in Quebec?
Just google “bill 101 quebec”
Why should Americans care? prensa 2 para el inglés
75% of the population rarely advance in the Federal government.

Dion is designated fall guy, the career academic and politician that shot up the middle of a convention none of the Liberal Party heavyweights wanted to win, because they knew the Liberals were going to be out of power for awhile.
The fun part is watching the in-the-tank-for-the-liberals msm up here with their pants around their ankles, smouldering.

DanaA on October 10, 2008 at 2:07 PM

I can’t believe some of the people defending Dion in this thread. There is absolutely no excuse for him not being able to comprehend a softball question tossed his way in English.

Paradox Drive on October 10, 2008 at 2:07 PM

Pauvre Stéphane, c’est l’anglais qui est sa bête noire!

Poor Stéphane is an intelligent man who expresses himself masterfully in French but has never mastered “la langue de Shakespeare.” In general, I hate his politics but do feel a little bit sorry for him here. His party will most probably lose next week so maybe he could take some courses if he’s still leader of the Liberal Party the next time around.

Annar on October 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM

I’m Canadian, and certainly not voting for him, but I don’t think the interview was that bad. Learning a second language isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and the question was probably a bit difficult to answer as well.

Little bit of Canadian trivia: The Canadian Liberal party alternates between French and English leaders.

SpencerFan on October 10, 2008 at 2:13 PM

Ignore the second-language issue (because Dion is very well educated and understands/speaks English very well), please note that Dion attempts to set specific parameters for his potential answer to the question with the interviewer (”Because if I was the Prime Minister two and a half years ago I would have an agenda” — which not a response you’d hear from a typical ESL student at a community college), and honestly answer this question:

If a Conservative politician had asked a journalist to “start over” in the middle of giving an answer, would the impartial and objective journalist have been so quick to oblige… twice?

ScottMcC on October 10, 2008 at 2:21 PM

I want to come a bit to Dion’s defence here.

Full disclosure first: I am an Atlantic Canadian (living abroad) and am familiar with the work of the interviewer (Steve Murphy). Traditionally, I voted for Dion’s party until, some years ago, I realized they were just moving too far to the left and I couldn’t support them any more (Atlantic Candian Liberals tend to be more centre right than their Toronto counterparts…unfortunately, Toronto rules).

What is happening in this video is some “sauce for the gander”. Murphy has a bit of a reputation as a conservative sympathizer, but primarily as having a bit of an ego. This was a double whammy for him, I think.

Dion’s first language is French, and he is not super strong in English…Harper (the conservative leader) is the same, but in reverse…his French is not that good. For Americans, perhaps, the second language of French may not seem that important, but in Canada it is how we have organized our country (i.e. on the basis of the dual languages…the French were actually in Canada before the English).We have tended to make allowances for Prime Ministers who can’t speak their second language fluently…Chretien had weaknesses in English, Clark (and now Harper) was weak in French.

The vast majority of Canadians accept this…that is why I consider it a bit of a cheap shot to emphasize Dion’s weakness…we know already.

Dion is a decent human being. I wouldn’t vote for him as Prime Minister in a hundred years…his environmental policy is lunacy, he wants higher taxes, is lukewarm on the Afghanistan mission (though,in fairness, he has supported Harper’s position on it and is supportive of the troops..he is not going to abandon the mission) and, most importantly, he lacks real leadership skill.

But he’s a good man, and this kind of personal shot is needlessly cruel.

That said, however, it’s sauce for the gander. The Liberals, and their media allies, have painted Harper and his party as cruel, mean and nasty. Harper’s coldness to the media is as a result of his rotten treatment by the media when he was in opposition…a lot like (but maybe worse than) that received by Gov. Palin.

And so, with a Tory leaning journalist a chance came for a bit of “what goes around comes around”…and this is what happens.

To me it’s kind of ugly.

Blaise on October 10, 2008 at 2:51 PM

To those here that are saying that the question is unclear or confusing, I have one question.

Who typed your replys for you?

Jim708 on October 10, 2008 at 2:52 PM

Blaise, (and a few others) –

You ought to have a look at Stephen Taylor’s latest posting as well, and you’ll see just how deep the hypocrisy runs:

Paradox Drive on October 10, 2008 at 2:59 PM

He seems to be an absintheur.

scrubjay on October 10, 2008 at 3:15 PM

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