{"id":1627,"date":"2008-01-18T22:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-19T03:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1627"},"modified":"2008-01-18T22:11:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-19T03:11:00","slug":"at-least-he-didnt-promise-to-invade-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1627","title":{"rendered":"At Least He Didn&#8217;t Promise To Invade Norway&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s been a lot of hubbub over some comments made by Dion earlier in the week, that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.conservative.ca\/\">certain people<\/a> have interpreted as a suggestion NATO invade Pakistan. Today\u2019s Post editorial calls it \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalpost.com\/opinion\/story.html?id=245160\"><span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">Stephane<\/span> Dion\u2019s <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">Obama<\/span> Moment<\/a>\u201dwhich is probably the nicest headline the Post has given to him in a year.<\/p>\n<p>As for Dion&#8217;s actual comments, here they are:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We are going to have to discuss that very actively if they [the Pakistanis] are not able to deal with it on their own. We could consider that option with the NATO forces in order to help Pakistan help us pacify Afghanistan.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Wow! That&#8217;s a totally&#8230;<em>non-controversial<\/em> opinion. What Dion was getting at is a perfectly valid argument &#8211; the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/national\/blog\/video\/at_issue\/index.html\">At Issue Panel <\/a>on CBC said as much last night. You won\u2019t get stability in Afghanistan and the region unless Pakistan does something about its border and stops harbouring terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>But the problem, as is so often the case, <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\">isn<\/span>\u2019t one of content but of communication. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubt what the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.notaleader.ca\/index_e.html\">Tory message <\/a>is going to be next campaign and the ambiguity in these comments plays right into that. The National had a clip of <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_4\">Mansbridge<\/span> interviewing Dion last night and, when asked what his solution was, Dion started to answer \u201c<em>I don\u2019t have any solutions<\/em>\u201d before quickly correcting himself to \u201c<em>I don\u2019t have a magical solution<\/em>\u201d &#8211; if he <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_5\">hadn<\/span>\u2019t caught himself when he did, the Tories would <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_6\">be making<\/span> their next attack ad buy right now (they still might).<\/p>\n<p>Foreign policy seems to get <a href=\"http:\/\/calgarygrit.blogspot.com\/2007\/05\/whats-my-line.html\">everyone<\/a> into hot water no matter how much of an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctv.ca\/servlet\/ArticleNews\/story\/CTVNews\/20060810\/ignatieff_mideast_060810?s_name=&amp;no_ads=\">expert <\/a>they are. We know the Tories will <a href=\"http:\/\/bcinto.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/dion-and-pakistan-wheres-gaffe-pray.html\">distort <\/a>every word come campaign time, so Dion is going to have to get his talking points down cold to make sure he <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_7\">doesn<\/span>\u2019t fall victim to another \u201c<span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_8\">Obama<\/span> moment\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s been a lot of hubbub over some comments made by Dion earlier in the week, that certain people have interpreted as a suggestion NATO invade Pakistan. Today\u2019s Post editorial calls it \u201cStephane Dion\u2019s Obama Moment\u201dwhich is probably the nicest headline the Post has given to him in a year. As for Dion&#8217;s actual comments, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}