Hacks & Wonks

....The appointment of some conservative-minded people (16 of 33) to the committees that determine whether a lawyer is qualified to serve as a judge.
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Jim Travers shows he's got just that type of extreme judgement towards anyone who dares identify themselves as a conservative thinker. [Link]
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Not one of the so-called rigged appointments has been knocked on qualifications by critics or the media. In fact, NDP MP Pat Martin wrote into the Winnipeg Free Press saying that he felt Pat Haasbeek - the Manitoban who was the focal point of Tuesday's torqued story in the Freep - very well could be qualified because of her length experience on the Prairie Region Parole Board, and that Pat was simply knocking the process.*
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If we want to know why good qualified people have completely turned off of our political systems, this is a good reason why. When your looking at the nomination rosters and find them a little thin of experience and business acumen and such, look no further than this week's ridiculous stories that somehow identifying one's self as a conservative automatically makes them incompetent for doing what they are assigned. (In this case, determining if someone is qualified to be picked as a judge.....After all, these boards don't pick judges themselves.)
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Bob Tarantino gets it a lot better than Jim Travers here. [Link] He explains how the committees work, how the votes are taken, how the lists are presented back to Minister, and how the issue should not be on who is a Tory and who is a Liberal** and what not. This issue is who's qualified to make the decisions?
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And hasn't this episode been telling of the touchiness in the judiciary? I didn't realize that the body was infallible.
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* - I don't know Pat, but her husband is one of Vic Toews' key allies. I was told by people I trust that Pat's credentials alone would justify her appointment and that an argument could be made that she should have been on the board long ago and it was her being a Tory that kept her off the Liberal-appointed boards.
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** - Once again, this story has been absolutely ridiculous. There is literally gobs and gobs of instances where the Liberals were appointing primarily Liberal supporters. Not once did we hear about them setting their agenda. Not once did we hear about them stacking the committees. I don't like railing the media for bias, but the Globe & Mail - who drove the story this week - cannot be defended on this one. They went hard and fast for three days on a story that basically suggested that conservatives are idiots and fools.
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Because that's what it comes down to.

Posted by The Hack on Saturday, February 17 at Saturday, February 17, 2007 | Permalink