Excellent read

The devil, the details and Stephen Harper

The starter’s pistol for Election 2015 has sounded. The three pillars of Stephen Harper’s past successes at the polls are now in place: fables, fear and the smear. Can they do the trick again?

The Conservative bias in the mainstream media (there hasn’t been a Liberal bias for years) has already led to rhapsodizing over Harper’s de facto balanced budget and looming tax cuts. Never mind the fact that this is a made-in-the-cutting room surplus. Never mind the fact that Harper wants your vote in return for shrinking your world. It is the PM’s choice of a ballot question in neon — buttressed by the usual bribes paid with other people’s money.

That same mainstream media (with notable individual exceptions, including the intrepid Canadian Press) is endorsing Harper’s view that Canadians are in imminent danger of being beheaded at the outlet mall by Islamic State. Man-eating pythons rising up from the toilet bowl pose more of a direct threat.

In fact, the third Iraq war is now part of the Conservative party re-election plan — as Harper himself inadvertently made clear when he placed his decision to start bombing firmly in the context of the coming federal election.

READ MORE: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/10/13/the-devil-the-details-and-stephen-harper/