Sunday, November 10, 2013

The CBC's Right Wing Personalities Have No Counterparts

For all of the various whining that the CBC is "statist" and left wing biased, I ask, where are the left wing CBC counterparts to these gems:
  • Rex Murphy, seen here writing an absurd polemic attacking Rob Ford's critics using a series of cliched strawman puerile caricatures of his opposition as just a bunch of downtown elitist snobs.  Ford has been seriously unpopular for years now, having left net popularity in mid to late 2011 and never looked back - even after the Scarborough subway victory.
  • Don Cherry, among his many offensive comments and reactionary views (many completely unrelated to hockey, which never stops him), peaked with his sneering and gloating speech at Rob Ford's inauguration where he went out of his way to insult Ford's opponents (also with cliched puerile caricatures)
  • Kevin O'Leary, who makes the evil banker in It's a Wonderful Life seem like a nice guy and takes pro-capitalism to a level of self-parody. He's also just generally a rude host and jerk to guests he disagrees with.
Cherry and O'Leary have their foils Ron McLean and Amanda Lang but neither is anything like as left wing as they are right wing.  That's OK, I really don't want a left wing equivalent to Don Cherry, or Kevin O'Leary (because they suck) but really, for a network supposedly so drowning in left wing bias, these three get a remarkable amount of prime time to spout off.  Rex plays some kind of more measured curmudgeon on TV but that column is grade-A wingnut, guess he can really let the flag fly when writing for the National Post.


6 comments:

  1. I attribute the ongoing and grating CBC presence of these characters as evidence of the public broadcaster's policy of appeasing the right in the forlorn hope of staving off further cuts to its funding. All it really does is erode its credibility.

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    1. I agree. It doesn't placate the critics, but hurts the organization with the people who actually like what it does.

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  2. Evan Solomon. Kady o' Malley. Not looking doesn't mean left wing equivalents do not exist.

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    1. Neither of those are remotely close to O'Leary. Find me either advocating for outright socialism and government command of the means of production. O'Leary shouts night after night for some kind of libertarian wet dream laissez faire system.

      Try again.

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  3. "Find me either advocating for outright socialism and government command of the means of production. "

    Newsflash, the Soviet Union is dead!

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