Angry in the Great White North

As personal attacks, it doesn't get much more personal than this:

Stephen Harper trussed up and over a fire, referred to as a pig, the spit being turned by Stephane Dion. The cartoon is printed on an apron.

Where can you get this apron? At the Liberal Party meetup in St John's, Newfoundland:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion continued to attack the honesty of the Conservative government, saying Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories can't be trusted.

At a news conference following his party's caucus meeting in St. John's on Wednesday, N.L., Dion used the examples of apparent aid problems in Afghanistan and whether the Conservatives did an end run around election spending restrictions during the 2006 federal election.

CTV's Roger Smith, in St. John's for the caucus, told Newsnet about one small item in demand at the meeting.

"The hottest-selling item here, this apron, selling for $20 by the Young Liberals," he said.

The apron shows Prime Minister Stephen Harper on a spit with an apple in his mouth. Dion is turning the spit, and a hog is basting Harper.

"Coming soon: The world's largest pig roast. See Harper's Conservatives go up in flames," reads the text.

It might be a small matter in the grand scheme of things, but when Stephane Dion speaks of keeping his word and being trustworthy, ought he not remember that he has, on multiple occasions, promised that personal attacks was not his style?

• Dion said he plans to "take the high road" in an election and avoid personal attacks on Harper - although he said Liberals believe the Tories are already planning attack ads featuring him. (Montreal Gazette, December 15, 2006)
• Dion vowed to stay away from personal attacks during the campaign. (Winnipeg Free Press, December 15, 2006)
• "You may have noticed that I don't attack the prime minister personally. I will not. I have heard that they are planning something about me -- they want to have that out in television ads as soon as possible but I will not do that. I want to take the high-road which is to compare two approaches for Canada in the 21st century," said Dion. (Winnipeg Free Press, December 15, 2006)
• "It's a very Bush style," he said with reference to U.S. President George W. Bush. "I will fight back, but not in negativity." (Montreal Gazette, March 31, 2007)
• "We'll fight back, but not with negative images," he told party faithful Tuesday night (Kenora Daily Miner and News, April 4, 2007)

Of course, Stephane Dion would not be the first politician in history to promise to run a positive campaign, and then delegate the vicious attacks to underlings. On that count, I can hardly fault him.

Having said that, in his comment in Kenora, Stephane Dion said "we" would not use negative images. "We" being the Liberal Party as a whole. I guess the NL Young Liberals didn't get the memo. I can't think of an image much more negative than the one on the apron.

A bit of free advice. If you promise to personally avoid personal attacks, then you should direct those underlings charged with launching negative attacks to avoid casting you in a personal attack as an active participant. Stephane Dion's Young Liberals of Newfoundland and Labrador made that cartoon up. These Liberals were selling the aprons while Stephane Dion was addressing the caucus. These Liberals were presumably not taken to task for using Stephane Dion's image as part of a rather violent political metaphor of Stephen Harper being burned alive.

It would seem, then, that the Liberal Party is endorsing the notion that Stephane Dion considers Stephen Harper to be a pig suited only for roasting (politically, of course).

Someone looking at this apron, realizing that it is semi-official Liberal Party memorabilia, would pause and wonder just Stephane Dion meant when he said he was going to avoid personal attacks. It's unfortunate for Stephane Dion that his word is being undermined by others.

Pig imagery is especially offensive to Muslims and Jews. Hopefully members of those groups don't take particular offense at the cartoon.

On the other hand, the aprons were selling well, and the Liberal Party could sure use the money.