Wednesday, February 18, 2009

When Egos Run Wild!

Apparently when the most popular President in generations makes his first visit to our country since taking office the main concern is not ensuring the President gets to have informed meetings with the most important figures in Canadian political life. Nope, apparently the top priority should be to ensure that our incredibly insecure Prime Minister gets to be the SOLE star of the show.


Have we ever seen a Prime Minister so afraid of others taking attention away from him that he feels the need to banish them to unseen quarters on a day where the world will have its eyes on us? Can anyone even picture any of our previous Prime Ministers acting this way?

No we can't have video footage of President Obama meeting with the Governor General or the Leader of the Opposition because that might take precious seconds away from clips that might be shown of the great Stephen Harper desperately trying to cozy up to President who is more popular that Harper could even hope to be. I guess Harper really thinks that people might buy the idea that there really is only one person of importance in Ottawa and that it's him. I guess this is how he's dealing with all the hits to his ego he's taken since December, so that with a day more about him than the guest of honour he can tell himself "I'm the star here, no one else!".

Unfortunately for Stephen Canadians know better and will see through these petty stunts. He looks incredibly small compared to all of his predecessors.

Perhaps the next time Obama visits (which I expect won't be for many more months, perhaps even a year) we'll have a Liberal government and Obama can see how vastly different things are done for a Presidential visit when the Canadian Prime Minister doesn't have an inferiority complex.

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3 comments:

sassy said...

Unfortunately for Stephen Canadians know better

and so does President Obama.

Reid said...

You Libs just still haven't come to terms with the fact that you are not the Government. Like it or not Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada and, in the grand scheme of things, Iggy is nobody.

From policy and cooperation standpoints there's nothing for Obama to gain with Iggy. Do you think the PM of the UK meets regularly with the Opposition Leader of the Italian Government?

Get over yourselves.

Danielle Takacs said...

Reid: But Obama is meeting with both Ignatieff and Jean, the main issue I and others have is the excessive media control Harper and his people have engaged in.

Why does Obama have to meet with Ignatieff at an airport hangar instead of at his office which is one floor above Harper's?

Why has Harper asked for live cameras to be banned from Obama's meeting with the Governor General?

Is it because Harper refuses to allow anyone to compete with him for media attention?

Sounds insecure and petty to me don't you agree?

I don't think we saw any of these issues created the for ANY previous Presidential visit where the President met with the Governor General and leader of the opposition do you?

Why you would defend this excessive micro-managing of the Obama visit I'm not sure.