I am on a bit of a news diet the past couple of days. With Haiti and the bad news in the Mass. Senate elections and all its grisly repercussions, I was getting debilitatingly bummed out. I couldn't even let the Daily Show parse it for me. While the political landscape in Canada is bad at times, it is mercifully tinged with moments of absurdity. Which is where I turn your eyes today, dear reader.
While in the U.S., politics has slumped to the level of fabrications and bizarre conspiracy theories, in Canada we do our political fighting via the Fab Four. Yes, our political strategy is to address one another through Beatles songs.
Evidence one: Steven Harper. Our humourless-seeming anti-populist leader who seems bent on shutting down Parliament at the slightest sign of crisis. Who controls his message so tightly, he has put an end to a long history of media scrums. He says artists are posh and lazy while slashing their funding. And all he has to do is show up at the NAC and do a Beatles cover (the irony is this polarizing leader's choice: "I get by with a little help from my friends"!!!!) and his popularity rating climbs by 10 PER CENT!!!
Evidence 2: Bob Rae, the man who wanted to be leader of the opposition, he has this adorable little retort to the latest prorogue (suspending parliament ostensibly for the Olympics, but we all know it was because of the Afghan detainee transfer to torture fiasco they have to answer to). His Beatles choice? "Let it be." Of course, he wants nothing less than to let it be.
