October 3, 2008
As we noted in Part I of our Canadian Election 08 Blooper Reel, the gaffe pipeline has been steadily fed by political parties of every persuasion and is showing signs of structural compromise.
Wednesday, we focused on the Liberals, our self-described “natural governing party”, who, at election time, like Mike Tyson pre-Buster Douglas, often feel that they’ve got things in the bag just by showing up. Unfortunately for them, the Liberal Big Red Machine (a nickname they share with the Hells Angels, fitting given the previous government’s penchant for bribery and extortion), is going to take it on the chin this time round. With polls showing that the Liberal War Horse might soon become pet food, we figured it was the ruling Tory’s election to lose.
Terminator I and II
These past few weeks changed all that, as no sooner had we laid down our Tory win/Tory majority parlay, then the election bookie laughed and dropped the phone. It seems our PM Stephen Harper, the alloy-eyed cyborg economist dressed up in sweater vests to hide his mechanical shell, was nailed using a speech which like the comedy of Dane Cook, was nearly completely lifted from other sources.
In this recent clanger an aide (who’s since had the good sense to step aside before getting his bottom reddened) admitted to lifting lengthy verbatim passages from a speech on Iraq by former Aussie PM John Howard in this, another in a series of embarrassments that have dogged Tory Blue.
Stephen ‘Toastmaster General’ Harper, who’d been busy cramming for the upcoming candidates debates was busted like some C student, and this while tell-all required reading by Julie Couillard looms. She’s a Hells Angels affiliated one-time girlfriend of a former foreign minister in Harper’s government, who’d left sensitive NATO documents in her home. (Minister Bernier, apparently, had some choice words for his old boss the PM in Ms. Couillard’s new book, saying he had a lousy sense of style, was fat, unhealthy and drank too much Pepsi).
Speaking of victuals, recently a bacterial illness resulted in the largest food recall in Canadian history as 19 people died from processed meat from a Toronto plant. Conservative Agricultural Minister Gerry ‘Wisecracker’ Ritz, who apparently had more than a few lines of his sensitivity manual blacked out, called the health scare “Death by 1000 cold cuts,” and when hearing of the latest victim’s passing (and seeing that he was not going to be played off-stage by a Vaudeville piano) cracked that he hoped it was a rival Liberal. Amazingly, he hasn’t hung himself with this gallows humor and remains in cabinet [seen here inspecting food]
Conservative Candidate Chris ‘Macho Man’ Reid: 
Recently, a terrible story made waves across the continent. A young man was randomly and savagely beheaded aboard a Greyhound bus by a maniacal fellow passenger. How do you handle such a horrific incident when you’re campaigning? Well, three choices: A) You don’t mention it (Hint: This is the best choice). B) You make some sort of call for increased safety on buses. C) You take on the role of armchair Batman and chastise the traumatized people who witnessed the horrific event for not trying to overpower a machete-wielding psychopath. If you chose C, you’re probably Chris Reid. The conservative candidate, who’d apparently slept through the important bits of Ritz’ sensitivity training seminar, resigned after he criticized passengers who “couldn’t muster up any courage or self-sacrifice to intervene”, blaming the lack of action on a “castrated effeminate population.”
Speaking of castrati, at least politically speaking, we now move on to the NDP, a party whose sphere of influence covers shabbily dressed public-sector workers, fans of government-mandated extra-long coffee breaks, Vegans, non-tenured professors, their debt-addled students and the homeless.The NDP has never and will never form a national government, but they can often be relied upon to provide some much-needed color come national election time, and this year they outdid themselves.
Dana Larsen had a dream, he had an awesome dream.
First up, the toker twins, Dana “Don’t Bogart Those Joints” Larsen and Kirk “Dave’s Not Here Man” Tousaw. (Larsen is the guy pictured to the left trying to get into the Guinness Book in a way that is a hell of a lot more fun than attempting to best the record for most handstands on a grapefruit). Larsen was the first of the two candidates to drop out, and he presumably did so because the NDP Party has yet to discover Google. Larsen appeared on an episode of “Weedy Wednesday Smokefest,” a mainstay on the now defunct Internet-run Pot-TV (apathy concerning the need for someone to get up and flip on the webcam believed to be chief among this outlet’s reasons for ceasing production).
Larsen was filmed lighting up a handful of joints (see above), as well as dropping acid, and driving a car while high on TMT and smoking a joint. (Editor’s Note: High-five!) His videos are best remembered for the stunning insight he shared with viewers during his acid experiment: “Hey, look at my foot – isn’t that trippy?” Tousaw (right), Chong to Larsen’s Cheech, dropped out of the running when another video surfaced of him sampling the contenders at a marijuana competition.
NDP leader Jack Layton. Probably hustled em out of a dime-bag too.
Both Larsen and Tousaw (for YouTube news clips of both stories click here) were recruited from the MARIJUANA PARTY, so we’re a little baffled as to why the sight of them indulging so reddened Layton’s bald head. Layton too was on Pot-TV, singing to the choir about how “an NDP government” would legalize marijuana, etc., and popular pot spokesman Marc Emery said a deal was cut with the NDP: You push for legalization and we’ll give you the pot-smokers vote. Layton has apparently changed his mind, no doubt after realizing the risk of putting all his political hopes in the hands of a group of people who may or may not decide to stay in for pizza and Playstation come Election Day.
Finally, we’ve saved the creepiest for last. Say hello to Julian “Currently Pointing” West, completing the BC NDP trifecta. Julian stood for environmental protection, caring about the needs of you the voter, and having the scientific truth behind the shrinkage factor in cold water taught in our nation’s schools. Mr. West also dropped out of the race recently after it was found out that he had taken his clothes off in a front of a group of teenage girls at an environmental retreat in 1996. It was initially reported that West merely went for an impromptu skinny-dip, and he said nothing inappropriate happened. But what he initially referred to as a “serious error in judgment,” is now being referred to among the now grown women who were there that day as “the day that creep, the tree-hugger got naked and was evidently happy to see us, without the possibility of anything being in his pockets.”
NDPer Jennifer Burgis and Julian West, the latter an unwelcome sight at local facepainting events.
Two women who were there at the time said that West – a Green Party candidate at the time, so we’re really killing two birds with this entry – stripped down completely in front of the girls who had been facepainting, and, they wrote in a letter to CBC that “Mr. West’s behavior was grossly inappropriate and of a sexual nature.” While witnesses allege that Mr. West was aroused at the time, we would like to raise the possibility that his arms were paralyzed and he was merely pointing out the direction to the free parking. We’re not saying that’s definitely what happened, we’re just throwing that out there.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, again showing the ability to take command of a perennial third-place party in troubling times, said that his party would have to review its screening measures for potential candidates. And by “review”, he meant “have some.”
CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE OF THE SHARK GUYS’ ELECTION ’08 BLOOPER REEL!
October 6th, 2008 at 12:17 am
And who says Canadian election coverage isn’t as exciting as American election coverage? I could watch stuff like this all day. :)