Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, for getting this at least as far into Canadian journalism as The Line - and I hope it can make it to a larger-audience journal, with all due respect.
It was one of the reasons I cancelled my WaPo subscription last year, after many years. Partly, it was their obsession with following the adventures of a small team of superheros, rather than the larger story. Everything is boiled down to how every event affects the POTUS, SCOTUS, and a dozen celebrity Congress names. The BBB bill reverse brought a headline about how this was bad for Biden. Biden?!??! How about the millions of regular folks it would actually help? No, nobody but millionaires above-the-fold, you peasants. When the coal miners wrote Manchin the next day, to protest he was hurting even them more than helping - not news. They're just coal miners. (I monitor all this because I can still see the headline page, and they let you run searches.)
But what pissed me was the realization that they were trolling me, entertaining me rather than informing, as surely as Fox News does its audience (the WaPo audience is also pretty homogenous, estimated 80% Democrat).
And McCullough is a troll. There's no objective reason, from his journalistic career, to hire him. The WaPo, obviously could have stolen anybody from Postmedia, people with decades of wide experience. But he's good at trolling, at superficially sane-sounding arguments, with a sharp editorial position. One the audience is guaranteed to react to. It's his job.
I started commenting on his every appearance, (the WaPo has a vast commentariat, popular columns get 2000-5000 comments sometimes), with the comment that this guy is actually unknown in Canadian journalism, his opinions are way out of line with the Canadian mean, he's clearly here to be a troll and garner hate-comments, unlike David Moscrop, who appears less often, and provides excellent columns: tight, informative, accurate - a real journalist.
They just need two David Moscrops, but it became clear to me that McCullough was for entertainment purposes only, for grabbing those 2000-5000 comments.
He's the equivalent for Canadian subscribers to their pet conservative Trump defenders, Henry Olsen and Marc Thiessen . (When regular conservatives like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot, Iraq War salesmen both, started criticizing Trump, the WaPo 'obviously' had to find even-more-conservative people that would not sound like Trump exactly, but defend him as basically right about various things, if personally problematic.) He's there to poke a stick in your cage.
My comments of this nature, especially when I prefaced them with "I didn't even bother to read this one, just dropped down here to warn others that they needn't take him seriously - don't get angry, he's just a dancing monkey"....started getting major "likes", and reply-comments thanking me and agreeing they'd been pissed for a while, now were numb.
WaPo the other day knocked their "come back" offer down to $1/ month, just $12/year. I'd rather pay TheLine sixty.
Just a bit of advice. If you are going to argue against something you should actually make your argument and present the reasoning, ideally citing sources. I've certainly had arguments with McCullough so I'm not siding with him, but they were in the form of debating not mere dismissing.
For example, you say, "McCullough pretended, wrongly, that the governor-general could actually turn down a request to dissolve parliament to trigger elections; she could not in the practical political context. "
OK, so where's the argument. All you said was that he's wrong, and she could not. Because ... why? I'll presume her vocal chords work, and her hand to sign things, so if she wanted to she could turn it down. The way to counter argue that is, what are the consequences? Would she be arrested? Would she be removed from her position and replaced by somebody who would agree to it? What is your actual argument about why she couldn't do it? I mean, it's certainly not possible in a practical context for me to walk across Canada. But, if I really wanted to there's nothing to stop me. There's no rule against it.
What would be the practical political consequence if she decided to refuse it? And, if she were willing to take on those consequences, would she still be able to stop the election from happening?
From how you describe it, it sounds to me like McCulloch is correct and she can deny the request; it's just not likely to occur because of some consequences she'd probably dislike more than just allowing the election to happen. But then he's not wrong. He's talking about actual rules vs traditions or tendencies.
I think you've diagnosed the issue all wrong. There's no fact-check that would result in showing that the GG can't deny the request for an election, unless there is some legal rule that negates the GG's refusal you can point to. "Practical political context" is not a fact. It's a nuanced consideration for why a GG would not likely turn it down. There's a difference between not allowed to do something and the unlikelihood of it happening. A fact-check won't find a rule that says I can't walk across Canada either, but it could point out that I'm not going to do it for practical reasons.
The issue here, I think, is misunderstanding communications and ways of thinking. Rules are rules, traditions are traditions, and impracticalities are impracticalities. The U.S system is very well defined by rules and boundaries, and where nuanced tends to emerge via court interpretations of the boundaries. That is what Americans are used to in how their governments work. When he describes Canadian government, he is putting it in context they understand compared to there system.
You, on the other hand, are interpreting in "hand-wavy" nuanced traditions, precedence, and practicalities for what Canadian governing bodies actual do and have done, not the strict rules. He appears to be right that the GG can deny it; you appear to point out, subsequently, that it is very unlikely a GG would ever do that. These are not mutually incompatible.
"We discuss American Supreme Court justices and decisions, while most people couldn’t name any of the justices on our own Supreme Court, or what cases are before it." This is so true, even for me. I only know one name of a Canadian Supreme Court justice and that's because he shares it with a great opera composer.
A broader problem: If this is how Canada gets misreported/misrepresented, what else gets misreported/misrepresented? This is an issue across borders. Also, the topics that don't get covered at all, especially in the culture wars, depending on the politics of the paper/media outlet. (CBC and the Toronto Star completely gaslight major stories you'll find at the National Post and Globe, just as Fox routinely gaslights news on other cable channels.)
I don't even have to agree with what JJ writes about to find this hit job targeting him as cheap. In fact I don't agree with a lot of things JJ says. But this personal targeting is uncalled for. This piece could well have been about how Canadians lack the basic knowledge of the workings of their own system and it would have rung true. But you don't need to do a hit job on JJ (or anyone else) to drive that point home.
I get that a lot of people don't agree with JJ (myself included at times). But that should not warrant personal attacks like this piece does. Certainly not on a growing platform like The LINE
I've written to the Post twice objecting to McCullough's nonsense. I get a sense of a writer trying too hard to be a contrarian to seem interesting. He's not. He does himself and Canadians a disservice. And the Post is just being lazy. Thank you Dale Smith for laying this out.
Oh Dear. Oh My. We have definitely run out of serious matters with which to be concerned. If it helps any, I know the feeling: I always wanted to be the Star’s western columnist but, sigh . . . . Merry Christmas everyone
They sure do pick some odd people to publish for "the Canadian" view. As to their motivations, I will leave the speculation to others, but they also on occasion publish Nora Loreto who is another guzzler of their own koolaid mix, albeit a different flavor.
Sure Canada might socially be more stable, but it's hard for Canada to make excuses for our relatively pathetic innovation, productivity and economic activity compared to the US, even taking population into account.
American might have serious problems, but so does Canada. Canada is much more likely to fall apart or go broke than the US.
If one is attempting looking for insight into typical Canadian attitudes wrt various topics, it would be harder to find someone further off the mark than McCullough (OK , OK, Ezra Levant would be worse).
Why does the USA import about 800,000 barrels per day of Russian crude oil and at the same time remove a permit to replace the oil with Canadian crude? Why does the USA talk about housing affordability and then double tariffs on imported Canadian softwood lumber ? Merry Christmas keep up the pace !!
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, for getting this at least as far into Canadian journalism as The Line - and I hope it can make it to a larger-audience journal, with all due respect.
It was one of the reasons I cancelled my WaPo subscription last year, after many years. Partly, it was their obsession with following the adventures of a small team of superheros, rather than the larger story. Everything is boiled down to how every event affects the POTUS, SCOTUS, and a dozen celebrity Congress names. The BBB bill reverse brought a headline about how this was bad for Biden. Biden?!??! How about the millions of regular folks it would actually help? No, nobody but millionaires above-the-fold, you peasants. When the coal miners wrote Manchin the next day, to protest he was hurting even them more than helping - not news. They're just coal miners. (I monitor all this because I can still see the headline page, and they let you run searches.)
But what pissed me was the realization that they were trolling me, entertaining me rather than informing, as surely as Fox News does its audience (the WaPo audience is also pretty homogenous, estimated 80% Democrat).
And McCullough is a troll. There's no objective reason, from his journalistic career, to hire him. The WaPo, obviously could have stolen anybody from Postmedia, people with decades of wide experience. But he's good at trolling, at superficially sane-sounding arguments, with a sharp editorial position. One the audience is guaranteed to react to. It's his job.
I started commenting on his every appearance, (the WaPo has a vast commentariat, popular columns get 2000-5000 comments sometimes), with the comment that this guy is actually unknown in Canadian journalism, his opinions are way out of line with the Canadian mean, he's clearly here to be a troll and garner hate-comments, unlike David Moscrop, who appears less often, and provides excellent columns: tight, informative, accurate - a real journalist.
They just need two David Moscrops, but it became clear to me that McCullough was for entertainment purposes only, for grabbing those 2000-5000 comments.
He's the equivalent for Canadian subscribers to their pet conservative Trump defenders, Henry Olsen and Marc Thiessen . (When regular conservatives like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot, Iraq War salesmen both, started criticizing Trump, the WaPo 'obviously' had to find even-more-conservative people that would not sound like Trump exactly, but defend him as basically right about various things, if personally problematic.) He's there to poke a stick in your cage.
My comments of this nature, especially when I prefaced them with "I didn't even bother to read this one, just dropped down here to warn others that they needn't take him seriously - don't get angry, he's just a dancing monkey"....started getting major "likes", and reply-comments thanking me and agreeing they'd been pissed for a while, now were numb.
WaPo the other day knocked their "come back" offer down to $1/ month, just $12/year. I'd rather pay TheLine sixty.
McCullough's YouTube videos are bizarre. He overplays a stereotypical Canadian, "a boat" and all.
Just a bit of advice. If you are going to argue against something you should actually make your argument and present the reasoning, ideally citing sources. I've certainly had arguments with McCullough so I'm not siding with him, but they were in the form of debating not mere dismissing.
For example, you say, "McCullough pretended, wrongly, that the governor-general could actually turn down a request to dissolve parliament to trigger elections; she could not in the practical political context. "
OK, so where's the argument. All you said was that he's wrong, and she could not. Because ... why? I'll presume her vocal chords work, and her hand to sign things, so if she wanted to she could turn it down. The way to counter argue that is, what are the consequences? Would she be arrested? Would she be removed from her position and replaced by somebody who would agree to it? What is your actual argument about why she couldn't do it? I mean, it's certainly not possible in a practical context for me to walk across Canada. But, if I really wanted to there's nothing to stop me. There's no rule against it.
What would be the practical political consequence if she decided to refuse it? And, if she were willing to take on those consequences, would she still be able to stop the election from happening?
From how you describe it, it sounds to me like McCulloch is correct and she can deny the request; it's just not likely to occur because of some consequences she'd probably dislike more than just allowing the election to happen. But then he's not wrong. He's talking about actual rules vs traditions or tendencies.
I think you've diagnosed the issue all wrong. There's no fact-check that would result in showing that the GG can't deny the request for an election, unless there is some legal rule that negates the GG's refusal you can point to. "Practical political context" is not a fact. It's a nuanced consideration for why a GG would not likely turn it down. There's a difference between not allowed to do something and the unlikelihood of it happening. A fact-check won't find a rule that says I can't walk across Canada either, but it could point out that I'm not going to do it for practical reasons.
The issue here, I think, is misunderstanding communications and ways of thinking. Rules are rules, traditions are traditions, and impracticalities are impracticalities. The U.S system is very well defined by rules and boundaries, and where nuanced tends to emerge via court interpretations of the boundaries. That is what Americans are used to in how their governments work. When he describes Canadian government, he is putting it in context they understand compared to there system.
You, on the other hand, are interpreting in "hand-wavy" nuanced traditions, precedence, and practicalities for what Canadian governing bodies actual do and have done, not the strict rules. He appears to be right that the GG can deny it; you appear to point out, subsequently, that it is very unlikely a GG would ever do that. These are not mutually incompatible.
"We discuss American Supreme Court justices and decisions, while most people couldn’t name any of the justices on our own Supreme Court, or what cases are before it." This is so true, even for me. I only know one name of a Canadian Supreme Court justice and that's because he shares it with a great opera composer.
A broader problem: If this is how Canada gets misreported/misrepresented, what else gets misreported/misrepresented? This is an issue across borders. Also, the topics that don't get covered at all, especially in the culture wars, depending on the politics of the paper/media outlet. (CBC and the Toronto Star completely gaslight major stories you'll find at the National Post and Globe, just as Fox routinely gaslights news on other cable channels.)
I don't even have to agree with what JJ writes about to find this hit job targeting him as cheap. In fact I don't agree with a lot of things JJ says. But this personal targeting is uncalled for. This piece could well have been about how Canadians lack the basic knowledge of the workings of their own system and it would have rung true. But you don't need to do a hit job on JJ (or anyone else) to drive that point home.
I get that a lot of people don't agree with JJ (myself included at times). But that should not warrant personal attacks like this piece does. Certainly not on a growing platform like The LINE
I've written to the Post twice objecting to McCullough's nonsense. I get a sense of a writer trying too hard to be a contrarian to seem interesting. He's not. He does himself and Canadians a disservice. And the Post is just being lazy. Thank you Dale Smith for laying this out.
Oh Dear. Oh My. We have definitely run out of serious matters with which to be concerned. If it helps any, I know the feeling: I always wanted to be the Star’s western columnist but, sigh . . . . Merry Christmas everyone
They sure do pick some odd people to publish for "the Canadian" view. As to their motivations, I will leave the speculation to others, but they also on occasion publish Nora Loreto who is another guzzler of their own koolaid mix, albeit a different flavor.
BS. Pure leftist drivel with more than a soupcon of envy.
Sure Canada might socially be more stable, but it's hard for Canada to make excuses for our relatively pathetic innovation, productivity and economic activity compared to the US, even taking population into account.
American might have serious problems, but so does Canada. Canada is much more likely to fall apart or go broke than the US.
If one is attempting looking for insight into typical Canadian attitudes wrt various topics, it would be harder to find someone further off the mark than McCullough (OK , OK, Ezra Levant would be worse).
Why does the USA import about 800,000 barrels per day of Russian crude oil and at the same time remove a permit to replace the oil with Canadian crude? Why does the USA talk about housing affordability and then double tariffs on imported Canadian softwood lumber ? Merry Christmas keep up the pace !!
Drives me nuts anytime I see a column by youtuber JJ McCullough. But, I've solved the problem. Cancelled WAPO as of the new year.