The Toronto Star's Flaming Red Pants

Because it consistently uses half-truths, the Toronto Star manages to spread manure, and yet leave the reader thinking it's roses.

Today's editorial manages to do something Paul Martin couldn't even do in his whinge on Thursday -- it exonerates him:

If voters are determined to punish Martin for what took place on his predecessor Jean Chrétien's watch, they will have as much opportunity to do so in February as they would have in June. (Emphasis, mine).

They persist in the fiction that because Harper and the Conservatives said openly that they would not defeat the budget and bring down the government, that Harper in fact supported it:

— a budget that Harper and his Tory party strongly supported -- . . . and conclude that if the election is held now, Canadians will suffer without the (budgetary measures) Harper himself backed exactly two months ago today.

Never mind that Harper was clear -- the budget might pass, likely would pass, because the Conservatives would not vote against it, but in his statements after the budget was released he was clear that although there were things in it they found reasonable, there was much that the Conservatives objected to:

(T)his budget, while it will get this government through this spring, does not give any confidence in this government’s ability to lead the country into the future. and Harper summed it up:

. . . We will therefore not defeat the government over this budget. While we will allow it to pass, we will also not vote in favour of this budget.

How does the Star-- so eerily like the Liberals-- manage to take such liberty with the truth, and yet remain largely unchallenged?

It's one thing for people to disagree over policy, or over the timing of the election, but when they rely on deliberately skewed information in order to support their POV, it becomes beyond frustrating.

You can't win arguments with liars -- their fragments of truth stick in the minds of the ignorant and ill-informed.

One can blurt out a lie, but sometimes the truth needs explaining -- unfortunately, most people read the headline and move on.

canadianna, hoping for a better Canada