Sunday, October 04, 2009

Sing me some hypocrisy, I'm the piano man.


There was this:

Ordinary folks don't care about arts: Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sparked a culture war in the federal election campaign with a claim that "ordinary people" don't care about arts funding.

Under fire for his government's $45 million in cuts to arts and culture funding, the Conservative leader yesterday said average Canadians have no sympathy for "rich" artists who gather at galas to whine about their grants.

"I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up – I'm not sure that's something that resonates with ordinary people," Harper said in Saskatoon, where he was campaigning for the Oct. 14 election.

Then, curiously, there was this:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper received a standing ovation after he surprised guests at a National Arts Centre Gala in Ottawa on Saturday night by playing the piano and singing a light-hearted Beatles tune.

Huh. Handy little photo op, that. I wonder how that was arranged. Oh:

Harper's wife, Laureen, is chairwoman of the NAC gala.

In unrelated news, Canada's Blogging Tories pretty much creamed themselves over this latest exercise in pathological narcissism. The grunting and moaning from Brenda/"Hunter" in Edmonton could be heard as far south as Red Deer.

P.S. I wonder about the reaction if someone in the audience had interrupted Harper's performance with "You suck!" I'm betting that all those staunch free speech, "You lie!" defenders would think that that was terribly, terribly gauche.

But that's just a guess.

12 comments:

Southern Quebec said...

"PM Harper is showing his real personality, everyone knows Laureen would not stay with a dud. She is bringing him out into the light so we can see what an exceptional guy he really is."

...From Brenda. I'm embarrassed for her...

WV: undess..hahahah

Ti-Guy said...

What a multi-talented PM we have. I can't wait until Harper takes to the stage to do that thing with the ping pong balls.

sooey said...

Please gawd. Don't let this become a political trend.

thwap said...

What did he sing? "I'm a Loser"?

Metro said...

Of course the latest scuttlebutt in Ottawa is apparently the rumour that Laureen is filing for divorce.

I'm sure this is a baseless rumour with not a scrap of fact. However, I'm going to treat it like a Conserative would and repeat it until it becomes received wisdom.

sooey said...

Hm. It didn't hurt Trudeau. It wouldn't hurt Harper, either. If the Liberals are dumb enough to try and make hay out of something like that, that's it for them - they can say goodbye to even a Conservative minority.

CC said...

On the plus side, if they did divorce, then the next time Steve-O wanted to take the stage at a NAC gala, he'd at least have to make it based on his musical talent, and not on the fact that he's boffing the chairwoman.

GaryB said...

Oh, come on people, Steve would look great sitting behind a piano wearing a polyester leisure suit and singing bad show tunes.

Remember, as you leave the bar, throw a couple of coins into his tip jar.

sooey said...

Maybe he was there because he's boffing YoYo Ma. Did you ever think of that, eh? Eh?

But seriously, shouldn't there be a Yo MaMa YoYo Ma joke?

Dr.Dawg said...

he'd at least have to make it based on his musical talent, and not on the fact that he's boffing the chairwoman.

CC wins the thread.

sooey said...

Okay, help me out here:

"YoYo Ma's so ___ he makes ___ look ___."

Frank Frink said...

Oh, come on people, Steve would look great sitting behind a piano wearing a polyester leisure suit and singing bad show tunes.

Or "Feelings". (Whoah-whoah-whoah-oh-oh)