Preville on Politics

Memo to John Tory: Unleash the asshole within

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Philip Preville

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I recently got turned on to a blog called Ottawa Watch and found this enjoyable little post about the “asshole factor” in politics. It mentions just about everyone except John Tory, who, judging by my discussions with him and every public display of behaviour, is a really nice guy. Maybe that’s the problem.

Mark Bourrie runs down the list in his blog:

Dalton McGuinty? Asshole. …Dalton replaced Ernie Eves (bad name, social-climbing asshole) who replaced Mike Harris (mean-assed asshole) who replaced Bob Rae (unprincipled asshole) who replaced David Peterson (not quite a complete asshole) who replaced Frank Miller (used-car salesman hick asshole) who replaced Bill Davis (manipulative small-town Rotarian asshole).

What Bourrie fails to mention is that “assholeability” is actually an important and necessary trait for politicians. One of the things people look for in a leader is the willingness to piss off the right people by telling them where they can stick it. And we judge our leaders partly by which groups they are happily willing to alienate—including, and perhaps especially, the people within the party that a leader is willing to quash mercilessly (for instance, when Chrétien left traditional-marriage Liberals out in the cold). Tory won’t utter a mean word about anyone in the snakepit that is the Ontario PC Party, and it’s hard to unite behind a leader who’s not willing to show people who’s boss.

Comments

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John T. March 5, 2008 at 3:08 p.m.

Well, there's no shortage of the "a-hole" factor in the media, that's for sure.

Honestly, this is one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

...and the fact that the commenting system doesn't allow the same words found in the post on is commenting on doesn't help either:

"Watch your mouth! The words "a-----e" are not allowed here."


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Philip Preville

Veteran freelance writer Philip Preville lived much of his life in Montreal and Edmonton before he was lured, like so many Torontonians before him, by the promise of more work and a better living. A National Magazine Award winner and former Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, Preville writes Toronto Life’s politics column. He lives with his wife and one-year-old son in Riverdale, just close enough to the Don Valley Parkway that he can hear it when he steps outside his house—but just far enough away that it doesn’t keep him awake at night. On his office wall hangs a 1938–39 press pass belonging to his grandfather, Elias Gannon, who wrote for the Montreal Star.


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