Norman spectates acutely at the Globe and Mail online:

In the House of Commons on Thursday, Conservative MP Jim Abbott had some harsh words for Canadian news organizations:

A few days after returning [from Afghanistan], I was at a social event where MPs, senators and the national news media were mingling, and as I walked by some reporters, one of them asked me about my impressions from the trip. I told him, first, I was blown away with the complete enthusiastic dedication of the Canadian soldiers, aid workers and diplomats in Afghanistan … second, the coverage of Afghanistan by our national news media has been at best inadequate … the news coverage, or lack of it, on Afghanistan has actually distorted the impressions that most Canadians have, or many Canadians anyway. Canadian media coverage of Afghanistan for 10 years has been the equivalent of covering news in Canada and Canadian events by having three reporters driving around in a Vancouver police cruiser on Vancouver’s east side. What would that coverage tell Canadians about Canadians’ aspiration or the beauty of our land or our potential? This parallel is appropriate, because news organizations from Canada have had an average of three people in Kandahar, driving around in LAVs or confined to the air base.

Mr. Abbott, who is a strong supporter of Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, offered these observations during debate of a Bloc motion condemning the Government’s duplicity in extending the mission to 2014. Given the paucity of coverage of that debate today, you’d have to extend his remarks about the media from Kandahar to Ottawa, and include opponents of Canadian participation in Afghanistan as well.

While most of the points raised yesterday by Conservative and Bloc MPs were predictable (and sometimes disingenuous), two interventions stood out and are well worth reading. From the Liberal side, Bob Rae explained why Canada is in Afghanistan – and why we must remain there – with an eloquence and intelligence that we’ve seldom if ever heard from the Conservative Government. Virtually nothing of what he said is reported in today’s papers. On the NDP side, Jack Harris tore through the Conservative and Liberal positions with devastating facts and logic. I could find nothing of what he said in today’s papers…

So first we had that Conservative coalition with the Bloc and now one with the Liberals; the prime minister sure seems to be considering them coalitions a pretty Good Thing after all.

Earlier:

Media out! Of Afghanistan/People’s Daily Online Update

Update: An exception to Mr Spector’s strictures: John Ivison, in the National Post’s “Full Comment”, is also impressed by Bobbety in the Commons:

Why Canada is in Afghanistan, and has to stay

We in the Press Gallery rarely report on parliamentary debates – usually for the very good reason they are so dull that if you don’t knit, you’d be advised to bring a book.

But there are exceptions and Bob Rae’s speech in the House Thursday must rank as one of those. There are no Churchills in the current Canadian parliament — a politician who, according to his friend F.E. Smith “devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches”  — but Mr. Rae has no peers when it comes to eloquence on the floor of the House. During the debate on the future of the Afghan mission Thursday, he explains his own thinking and why he arrived at the conclusion Canada could not simply pull out…

Mark
Ottawa