POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The business of political endorsement by a newspaper is an entirely outdated and inappropriate concept.
It is a practice going back to the days in the late 18th century when parties each literally owned their own newspapers, the newspapers being used for the same manipulation of public opinion we call propaganda when it occurs in places like the good old USSR.
In the 20th century, ownership had graduated to secret smoky room deals between big newspaper magnates and politicians.
Things aren’t quite that black-and-white anymore, but we do know that certain papers favor certain parties, even though they may occasionally break with their favorite when endorsement would be a waste of breath and would possibly endanger relations with a new government, the results being so predictable.
How, in any way, is a group of editors qualified to suggest how people should vote?
It is almost mumbo-jumbo to suggest that they are.
Indeed, you are so dependant on relations with government for everything from access to leaks, your endorsement cannot be genuinely based on fair analysis.
So why don't you set an example, Globe, for the 21st century and just forget this puffed-up nonsense?
But judging from the day-to-day quality of the editorials in the Globe, cloudcuckooland stuff for certain, there'll be no stopping your people from marching around the office with laughable gravity and pretensions galore, preening their feathers and expecting to be made much of by the hopeful candidates (or is it hopeless candidates in this election?).
The Globe's editorial writers have what must rank as the world's highest usage of words like "should," "must," and “incumbent upon,” exceeded only by America's large flock of evangelical tent preachers.
Grow up, please.
