As promised yesterday, journalist and Giller prize winner Linden MacIntyre took on the Afghan detainee issue this morning. What a joke. The half hour segment was divided into two parts. The first was simply phone ins, mostly rants, from polarized perspectives. Yes, cheap, lazy journalism, but the norm for the people's network.
The second half featured right-wing fossil Lowell Green (isn't he dead yet-- I remember listening to him in the 60s?) and left-wing harpie Linda McQuaig. Predictably it turned into a scream fest. Lowell wrapped himself in the flag (as a diaper?) while McQuaig loudly drew on her limited supply of lefty tropes. The issue itself was scarcely touched, but for the ancient and irrational there was much catharsis I guess.
I suppose this is what journalism looks like from a barstool: lazy, cheap and completely uninformative. Yet this is an issue as serious as any the military has ever faced and one that should, given how it has been played, bring down a government.
The problem here is that Parliamentary government has succumbed to a monopolistic journalism and dictatorial political executive -- a symbiosis of the unaccountable. Parliament and ultimately the courts, the venues where this issue should and must be played out, have been sidelined.
This is sad.
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