NDP wins expose media hypocrisy

Den Tandt, Sun Media:

The lean and hungry pack circles its prey — singling out the weak, the young, the aged and infirm. A target is selected and methodically cut from the herd. Then the bloodletting begins.

The end is quick and brutal.

We’re speaking, of course, of the press gallery, and the not-so-courteous reception we’re collectively giving the NDP’s incoming Quebec caucus. Though, if truth be told, not many of us are particularly lean. Or hungry.

Well-fed, smug, self-satisfied, are words that come to mind.

You’ve heard and read by now about Opposition leader Jack Layton’s merry band of 58 students, activists and barmaids, bright-eyed idealists all, soon to stumble into the capital, craning their necks at the tall buildings and whispering, “Gooooolly” like Gomer Pyle.

All of this, reported in a tone of prim indignation, beneath which lies ill-concealed glee. What a meal these youngsters will make! So inexperienced, so callow, they’ll certainly stumble and fall. It will be a metaphor for the entire NDP — untested, unseasoned, never been near power. Now they’ll learn why so many experienced politicians and, let’s face it, most journalists, are so deeply cynical. What a show it will be.

The hypocrisy is stunning.

Reporters, if you sit one of us down and stick a drink in our hand — preferably a free one — will be the first to tell you Ottawa is broken and has been for a long time.

The 308 MPs themselves, our weary drinker will tell you, are ever so predictable in their backgrounds. Lawyers, well-to-do business folk, senior executives near retirement, a few academics, a few medical doctors. Canadian MPs, until now, have been overwhelmingly middle-class and middle-aged, or older.

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