Conservative Self Censorship

The sound of silence. Its stunning, really, the near-total public silence from Conservative ranks on the Emerson-Fortier appointments. In lighter moments it reminds me of that campy 60’s TV series, Get Smart. You know, the infamous cone of silence!

The Prime Minister’s Office certainly is playing the enforcer at higher levels, with its edict that none shall speak their mind without their nouns and verbs being run through the PMO‘s word cleansers first.

At the mere member-level of the party, censorship plays a role, too. The anonymous but prolific conservative writer behind Civitatensis decided that the simple truth was too much for his blog, and deleted my comments to his article The Fortier Surprise. The article argued in favour of Harper’s appointment of Fortier by leaning on the now familiar apologist’s tactic of pointing at the pragmatism and expediency of the move. Yet in the lengthy article, the writer completely failed to address the specific promise Harper broke just a few short weeks after making it. Accordingly, I made a comment about the article on the Civitatensis weblog which was quite promptly censored. Here’s what I said:

Expediency and pragmatism are euphemisms for making a wrong seem right.

Not only has Harper gone against conservative thinking developed over more than a decade while out of power, Harper specifically broke a promise to the electorate in appointing Fortier.

On January 12, en francais, to Montrealers, on TV, in response to this question:

Q: “What will you do if you don’t elect any members from the Montreal area? Will you appoint someone to cabinet?”

Stephen Harper: “No, I’ve always believed that cabinet positions should be filled from within the ranks of elected parliamentarians.”

Why would the anonymous author of Civitatensis want to hide such a pertinent fact?