3/14/18
A reverse Modest Proposal?
Sure, there is a certain bluster in his tone, an overweening self confidence that might be taken down a notch. But for all that, there is in his journalism an authoritativeness in combination with his wide and deep understanding of a broad range of policy issues, born of his erudtion and experience, that marks Conrad Black’s unique excellence among Canadian journalists. Not many can match him for erudition and polemical forcefulness.
Here his advice to Justin Trudeau reads like Swift’s Modest Proposal. Not that his culminating hope, namely:
....It is not too late for the Trudeau government to assemble a good record for its re-election, and it is time for better government in Toronto and Ottawa, whether by change of party or the grace of conversion....
rests on advice akin to the poor Irish selling their children to the wealthy for their dining. Rather the satiric absurdity of Swift’s proposal measures how remotely far from probability it is that Black’s sane policy advice will be taken up by the liberals as opposed to the virtue tolling that marks so much of liberal policy. The heights of this tolling seem evident in Trudeau’s ridiculous costuming of himself and his family in traditional Indian get up, a photo op bridge way too far.
No comments:
Post a Comment