More On Our National Embarrassment

 I recently posted about our national embarrassment known as Conrad Black, sycophant extraordinaire.

The following, by editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder, was tweeted by Neil MacDonald, who observes.

And a grateful Black is now vigorously pushing back against any idea that the attack on the Capitol was violent. Just high spirited patriots.

 

Our Own Rudy Guiliani

I'm sure I am but one of millions who have followed  the antics of Rudy Guiliani, deriving bittersweet amusement from his addled but staunch defence of his master, Donald Trump, who has reportedly now turned against his lapdog and is refusing to pay his legal bill. 

Standard operating procedure in Trumpland.

But Canadians envious of the dark comic relief afforded by the hapless Giuliani need not despair. As Bob Hepburn writes, we have our own version in Canada: Conrad Black.

Not to be outdone by Giuliani, Black has in recent weeks kicked up his loud, long-held support for Trump and now ranks among the president’s most fawning loyalists.

Like Giuliani, the former Canadian business mogul and ex-U.S. convict has appeared on American talk shows spreading the same conspiracy theories and misinformation about the election, including discredited allegations of widespread voter fraud on the part of Democrats.

Stunningly, in the aftermath of last week’s riots on Capitol Hill, Black continues to heap praise on Trump.

 He insists on conservative talk shows that Trump did nothing wrong in the lead-up to the Capitol Hill insurrection, that the rioters “were not Trump supporters” and that top Republicans who are now distancing themselves from Trump are “repulsive” and “disgraceful.”

 For years, Black has stuck with Trump, from sex scandals to dog whistle appeals to white supremacists. He capped it with a 2018 book titled “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.”

And Black has reaped a rich reward for his sycophantic servitude. 

Trump pardoned him in 2019. Black was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and served 3½ years in a Florida prison before being released and deported to Canada.

In 2020, Black continued to fawn over Trump, writing last month in The Hill, a top U.S. political website, that Trump’s record in office “has been a tour de force.”

Shamelessly, and without any apparent moral or intellectual (despite his propensity for pretentious language designed to hide his paucity of real thought) compass, Black has supported the risible Trump fantasy that he lost the election, and even worse, mocks the seditious events last week at the Capitol building.

On Jan. 6, the day of the riots, Black retweeted a Twitter post that appeared to mock the damage and frightened lawmakers. “The damage to the Capitol was really quite shocking,” the retweeted comment read. “Very disturbing picture below showing that plastic water bottles were littered on floor of Capitol, rather than being properly placed in recycling. One can hardly blame congressmen for abandoning premises.”

Trump has had a series of lapdogs before and during his presidency. It is to our shame that some of them (are you listening, Brian Mulroney?) have been Canadian in origin. 

 

To The Obsequious Go The Spoils

And no one is more obsequious than Lord Tubby Black.



H/t Michael De Adder

You Can't Fire Me, I Quit!

Sorry Conrad. Try as you might, even you can't alter reality.

A Lion In Winter

Like a bloated, aging and wounded lion who realizes his hold over his pride is at an end, Conrad Black is lashing out. Still licking his wounds from lacerations received at the hands of the CBC's Carol Off, Black used his column in Saturday's National Post (which as a rule I do not read, but more about that later) both to justify his journalistic ineptitude and to strike back at his growing list of adversaries who include Star editor Michael Cooke, Star columnist Rosie DiManno, The Star itself, and well, just about anyone else who finds fault with him.

With false leonine pride, in his column Black maintains the fiction that it was not journalistic ineptitude but rather the show's format that explains his toothless interview with disgraced Toronto pretend-mayor Rob Ford:

As co-host of the Vision Channel television program Zoomer, I invite people to sit down with me in civilized conversation, which often included unwelcome questions. But I do not conduct an antagonistic debate. This is a format that viewers seem to enjoy, and it was on this basis that guests — including Mayor Ford, last week — have agreed to speak with me.

He goes on to dismiss the controversy over Ford implying that Daniel Dale is a pedophile as a sideshow, and then launches into what can only be described as a screed against The Star and its staff, most notably its most prolific and acerbic writer, Rosie DiManno, whom he describes as a feminoid who is so disconcerted by my wife’s timeless appearance that she refers to the frequent praise of her as a form of “necrophilia.”

Which brings me to how I wound up reading Black's piece. This morning, The Star's own lioness, Rosie Dimanno, still apparently in her prime, extrudes her own claws as she responds to the Black attack.

Here is her opening salvo:

Mrs. Conrad Black is the most gorgeous septuagenarian on the planet.

And, while hardly a kitten with a whip any longer, Barbara Amiel remains quite the dominatrix in print, a polished writer who can stick a stiletto heel into any subject’s jugular. A far better wordsmith than her husband, too. Indeed, Black isn’t even the best writer from among her five spouses.

I mention the Baroness only because hubby has specifically accused me of not appreciating her timeless beauty. I do. And maybe at some future date, Amiel can give me the name of her plastic surgeon.

Lest you think her column is simply a catty attack on Mrs. Black, she soon turns her attention to her real target:

We now know also why disgraced newspaper baron and felon Connie (Con, for short) devotes himself to producing remainder-bin biographical doorstoppers about dead people — because he doesn’t have to interview them. His singular lack of skill in this most basic reportorial function was on grotesque display last week whilst “chatting” — Black doesn’t call these puffball exchanges interviews — with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford on his Zoomer show, an excruciatingly embarrassing episode that should be shown to J-students as instructive lesson on how not to do it.

There is much more in her piece which, depending upon the exigencies of time and interests, you may wish to check out.

While there are admittedly much bigger issues that need to be addressed and pursued in the world today, sometimes there is an innate satisfaction to be had when bullies, whether of the physical or verbal kind, are soundly and roundly put in their place. And while many may lament the fact that age eventually diminishes all of us, we do no one any service by using that to excuse the effete roaring of a lion in winter.

A Lesson In Humility For The Good Lord?

While I readily admit to not having wasted my time watching Conrad Black's interview with Toronto's pretend-mayor, I did take special delight in the dressing-down he received at the hands of As It Happens' Carol Off, as noted yesterday. One hopes that he learned something about real journalism from the encounter.

Today, two Star letter-writers offer their comments on the actual interview. Short version: they were not impressed. And given the fact that Star reporter Daniel Dale has decided to sue Vision TV, Zoomer Media, and Rob Ford, perhaps Moses Znaimer will have reason to reconsider his decision to employ Conrad and give the job to a qualified Canadian citizen?

Ford stands by on-air comments to Black, Dec. 11

I guess the all-consuming nature of the Rob Ford fixation is responsible for the fact that there appears to have been almost no comment on Conrad Black’s own performance during his so-called interview with the mayor on ZoomerTV. This was presumably an opportunity for Rob Ford to give his side of the controversy, but did anyone notice that if that was the purpose, the mayor needn’t even have been there. Black was doing the job more than adequately on his own. Indeed, he seemed so intent on whitewashing the mayor’s questionable, often bizarre behaviour that he barely let Ford respond to his oh-so-gentle questions and took to answering most of them himself — and in a manner that made Ford seem a victim. In fact, Black frequently laid the blame for the Ford fiasco on the media and the police, missing no opportunity to beat up on those institutions that he blames most for his own clashes with the law. No, this certainly was not an “interview.” A satire of one, perhaps, rendered all the more laughable by the smarmy, onscreen follow-up in which Black’s co-host proclaimed ZoomerTV’s commitment to the highest standards of journalism.

Marvin Schiff, Toronto

What a disappointment to watch Conrad Black throw lob balls to our disgraced mayor. It has become obvious that Black was not a wise choice to interview Rob Ford and he clearly chose to not ask any difficult questions of relevance. Perhaps they should have re-aired the Matt Lauer interview. At least that was informative and entertaining.I am disappointed in Moses Znaimer for allowing this to air on his network. His audiences deserve better content. That was 30 minutes of my life I’m not getting back.

Tome Brazier, Unionville

The Good Lord Gets His Comeuppance

Those who, over the years, have grown weary of the pretentious blather of Conrad Black, the lord and baron much put upon by the requirement that he be subject to the same laws that bind mere mortals, may take some delight in the lesson in real journalism given him by As It Happens' Carol Off.

The former Lord Tubby, much slimmed down following his six-and-a-half years as a guest of the U.S. justice system (prison, I guess, imposes all kinds of disciplines including, one assumes, those of a dietary nature) received his rebukes as Off took him to task for his softball interview of Toronto Mayor-in-name-only Rob Ford in which he permitted the offish civic embarrassment to imply that The Star's Daniel Dale is a pedophile and that Chief Blair has orchestrated a massive conspiracy against him because of police budget restrictions led by the gravy-train foe.

Taking exception to having his talents called into question by a mere public servant, Black grew somewhat testy as the interview proceeded. Clearly, Ms Off doesn't know her place in the world of the gods.

If, like me, you take a certain delight in seeing the arrogant chastised, you can enjoy a transcript of the interview here or listen to the actual interview here.

P.S. No word on how Black is able to work and be paid by Zoomer for his interview work, given his temporary residence status. Then again, perhaps he is part of some kind of work-release program, given the $3 million that he owes Canada Revenue.

Some Very Good News About Linda McQuaig

Opening my Toronto Star this morning, I was delighted to learn that journalist and author Linda McQuaig, who has figured fairly prominently in many of my blog posts, will be seeking the NDP nomination in Toronto Centre, Bob Rae's former riding. A perpetual thorn in the side of unfettered capitalism, McQuaig has a fierce intelligence and the kind of critical-thinking skills an informed society needs.

An author of countless books and columns, the fact that her words matter is perhaps most acutely attested to by the fact that Lord Black of Crossharbour (aka Con(rad) Black), a man given to great bouts of verbosity generating much sound and fury that often signify little or nothing, once declaimed that she should be horsewhipped after she took on some of his more nefarious practices.

In today's debased public arena, where opinions that challenge the status quo are frequently ridiculed, shouted down or demonized by the hard right, Linda McQuaig is just the person to stand her ground and prevail against the assault on reason. Should she receive the nomination and win the byelection (for which Harper must set the date by January of 2014), I have every confidence that she will prove a worthy and articulate adversary of the Harper cabal in the House of Commons.

Which Black Do You Prefer?

If you are Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the choice is clear.

A Thought On A Hot Evening

Confined as I have been to the house today and tonight thanks to the heat and humidity, I thought I would make a brief posting. I've been writing recently about the importance of critical thinking skills. Following is a link to a National Post piece that my son just sent me in which reporter Jonathon Kay justifies publishing articles by convicted felon Conrad Black. If you are interested, take a look at the piece and see if you can spot some of the shortcomings of logic within it and the likely real purpose it serves.