Liberals: new dogs, same old tricks

Kudos to Steve Janke for outing Jason Cherniak’s Orwellian editing of John Baird.

This incident is reminiscent of the stunt the McGuinty Liberals pulled in the 1999 Ontario election. One of their ads included a clip of an old Global TV interview in which Mike Harris describes himself as “mean mad Mike.” The Liberals, however, omitted the set up to the quote, which was Harris explaining that if the Chrétien Liberals took the money they cut from the provinces and blew it on a new program (helloo Sponsorship!), then a “mean mad Mike” is whom they would have to deal with.

The late great Peter Naglik spotted the ad (quietly launched in the wee hours), dug up the interview tape showing the context, and by lunchtime the Liberals’ paid media had blown up in their face. Good times, good times.

If nothing else, Cherniak can now say that he has achieved the level of expertise of Dalton McGuinty’s 1999 communications team.