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December 30, 2005
Are There Lessons in Canadian Mike Klander's Political Demise?
Arthur Weinreb, Associate Editor of the Canada Free Press, looks at lessons that can be derived from the downfall of mean-spirited Canadian Mike Klander, whose careless musings on his blog caused his political demise. As Weinreb notes in a December 29, 2005 post headlined "Internet brings fairness to election reporting," Klander "was executive vice-president of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario), (and) ran a blog where he opined about the current election campaign." Wrote Weinreb:He posted a picture of Olivia Chow, the wife of Jack Layton and an NDP candidate in the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, next to a picture of a chow chow dog under the banner "Separated at Birth".
The worst thing about that particular post was that it was not funny. Even hard-core haters of the long time Toronto City Councillor would have a hard time seeing the similarity between Chow the candidate and chow chow the dog. In fairness to Klander, perhaps if you stared at the picture for hours you could convince yourself that there was a resemblance between the two. Mr. Klander, besides being not funny, obviously had way too much time on his hands. Apparently it was also supposed to be humourous because both Ms. Chow and the dog are of Chinese descent. Weinreb said, "Some in the mainstream media that reported the incident reported only on the Olivia Chow picture; leaving out the other egregious examples from the former Liberal execs website. To the chagrin of the Liberals, the bloggers are not confined by either space or time; the entire thinking of Mike Klander is now out for the world to see."
He added: "The work of the bloggers is a great example of how the Internet not only provides political balance but makes it impossible for the mainstream media to avoid covering or burying issues like this like they would have in the past."
Although Klander's blog has been deleted, here's a Google cache of mikeklander.com. His photo montage on Ms. Chow was up yesterday but Urban Detail, which hosted the picture, has removed it, saying "This image has already had more than enough attention." However, you can find it at www.lookupconservative.com. At least it was there when this item was posted.
By the way, Weinreb mentions some of Klander's "other egregious examples from the former Liberal execs website." Here's a list of 47 Klander posts.
The NDP mentioned above is the New Democratic Party of Canada. Jack Layton is leader of the NDP. Here's a biography on his wife, Olivia Chow.
Note: This item is also posted at The Blogging Journalist.
Posted by Munir Umrani at December 30, 2005 10:13 AM
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