My Log 322 October 2 2012-10-02 Disgraceful remarks blaming Mulcair for Jack Layton’s death are not assuaged by an insincere apology

English: Jack Layton making NDP transit announcement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 I am developing what I can only describe as a visceral distaste for the Canadian Conservatives, whose behaviour towards political issues of the day makes one gag.

The recent major issues --- attacks on the UN by our witless Foreign Secretary a man so gormless that I am told his staff have to plot how to reduce his face time vis-à-vis visiting Foreign Secretaries, who so often speak three and four languages, and conduct themselves with polish and diplomatic intelligence; the sucking up to US policies in all things; the obeisance before Israel; the vengeful, vindictive attitudes to Canadians in trouble, particularly if they are of the Muslim faith ---- all these are so well documented and so offensive to ordinary people with a modicum of decency as to need no further elaboration from me.

Let me just mention one recent example which seems to epitomize the level of tasteless drivel  that the Conservatives normally exhibit.  Their MP Rob Anders recently criticized Thomas Mulcair, the first NDP leader to pose a real threat to the governing party in our history, for, of all things, having hastened the death of the former NDP leader Jack Layton by insisting that he overwork himself during the last election.

That such a distasteful claim should ever have been made is enough to beggar description. That such a gutsy, selfless political performance as that given by the dying NDP leader, as he stumped the country on his cane should have been demeaned by such insensitive comments certainly beggars belief. Yet this is the kind of attitude we have grown accustomed to in the era of Stephen Harper, who sets the smarmy tone from the top.

That Anders has apologized for his remark makes no difference: if he had even a modicum of decency in his bones he would have  shrunk from making such a charge, and his apology changes nothing, in my opinion.

All it does, for me, is to confirm the shoddy standards according to which Harper and his disgraceful gang carry out the government of  this country, causing every person with the slightest pride in some of our notable past achievements to hang his head in shame. Are we ever going to get rid of these guys?