Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Who Knew?

The most predictable and irritating excuse politicians give when some hairbrained scheme blows up in their face is the reliable, "Who knew?" That's pretty much what John Tory said when it was clear that his plan to fund private religious schools wasn't going to fly. The reason the "Who knew?" reaction is so annoying is because the obvious answer is often, "Everybody."

When I was in university the school administration came up with some awful plan that the majority of students strongly opposed but one student politician felt that it was her duty to go out and sell the administration's plan. Nobody listened to her and the plan was canned and she was left looking like a shill for the administration. The following year, when she ran for student government again, she was confronted with her dubious role in the affair and she cried out, "I was DUPED! I was duped by the administration!"

A worse offender is Michael Ignatieff, who shrugged off his own bad judgement for supporting the invasion of Iraq. Who knew? Well, again, pretty much everybody. There were unprecedented worldwide protests before the war even began.

Sadly, we're seeing the same from our city councillor, Adam "I'm going to make it harder and harder for you to support me" Giambrone. In the weekend papers it was revealed that Giambrone didn't oppose a city plan to turn the Matador (A local landmark) into a parking lot. He'd never been to the Matador so after that little neighbourhood curiosity is lost, he'll be able to say, "Who knew?"

But who knows, maybe John Tory really did know. Maybe he was hoping the religious funding issue would blow up and weaken the positions of the remnants of the Harris government still active in his party. Too bad for him that taking the passive aggressive route makes him look like the dupe.

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