Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Bennett tapes

I have always had time for Bill Bennett.

When he made it back into cabinet in a 2008 shuffle, I had this prescient comment:

"Back to good news, I'm glad of the return of Kootenays MLA Bill Bennett to cabinet, this time as tourism, culture and arts minister, and the addition of Peace River MLA Blair Lekstrom as community development minister (although that's not much of a job, except for the pine beetle responsibilities that are cobbled on).
Both are smart, will speak their minds and stand up for their constituents and are from outside the Lower Mainland. They will be valuable around the cabinet table."

Bennett was bounced from cabinet Wednesday for saying Gordon Campbell should step down as premier now to let the party begin rebuilding.

He did not go quietly, accusing Campbell of being a bully and one-man government. The Times Colonist has offered an audio file of his comments in a scrum here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Campbell absent when Bennett given the axe, by Jonathan Fowlie, The Vancouver Sun

Too bad Deputy Premier Colin Hansen didn't grab some courage and turf Campbell from cabinet; instead he took the coward's way out.

Norm Farrell said...

'Stenographic Journalism' from Media Matters

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200904090020

Reporter Paul Kane: "We reported what Olympia Snowe said. That's what she said. That's what Republicans are saying. I really don't know what you want of us."

Got that? Olympia Snowe said something, Paul Kane wrote it down, and he doesn't know what more anyone could want from him.

Norm Farrell said...

To clarify, my comment about stenographic journalism is directed at Jonathan Fowlie's work.