Warren's tossing of the cookies gets the wing nuts flying

John Tory has been uncharacteristically silent on the the great cookie caper, otherwise known as the less than smart statement from Warren Kinsella that MPP Lisa MacLeod probably wished she were home baking cookies rather than being forced to share a stage with Randy Hillier.

Hillier, of course, is the misogynist dinosaur who's the right wing Tory candidate who repulses and terrifies many Tories but who is the darling of the far right of the party - so much so that John Tory was afraid to intervene and not let him be a candidate. It's easy to understand why MacLeod would wish to be anywhere but near Hillier but baking cookies?

Admit it - there's nothing wrong with baking cookies, but Kinsella shoulda known every half baked wing nut would pounce all over him for it - and the raving right didn't let us down. Slobbering and drooling over political gains they hoped to make, they tried to force the comment to take on an ominous shape, replete with hidden meaning. Well shit Shakespeare, it just doesn't fly.

John Tory ducked the whole thing and let MacLeod and other minor back bench Tories speak out on the comment, which Kinsella made in his blog about a week ago. Kinsella has apologized profusely and unreservedly for it.

I suspect John Tory would like to mix it up over the statements but it's a little hard to position yourself as a champion of women when you've shoved aside a superb woman candidate in Willowdale, Effie Triantafilopoulos, to let mediocre (and that's giving him a huge benefit of the doubt) middle aged, WASP Tim Peterson swan into the next election as the Tory candidate without ever having to face a nomination battle.

Tory is also running against out lesbian Kathleen Wynne in Don Valley West and he's made phone calls to other women running against Tory women candidates, whining about why they would do such a thing and why didn't they find another riding? Like you found a riding other than Don Valley West, John? Ain't hypocrisy wonderful.

There was tons of hypocrisy around Kinsella's remark. Probably the most ridiculous reaction of all came from the NDP's weird Cheri DiNova. DiNova, who is known for dumb ass, over-the-top comments, made the extraordinary claim that such a remark "discourages women from getting involved in politics." Well, maybe NDP women, but not any women we know who are running for the the PCs, the Greens or the Liberals. Women we know hooted with derision at DiNova's stupid statement and it's easy to see why. If a comment about baking cookies makes your knees weak and sends you for cover, then honey you have no business being in politics in the first place.

She added “What does that say to women who are thinking of going into politics?” Well, don't run for the NDP is the first and most obvious thing it says.

MacLeod, in criticizing Kinsella, said "putting daycare on site" at Queen's Park would make politics "more family friendly" and she's right and the Grump agrees that access to quality child care in the Pink Palace might make life as a politician a lot more attractive.

The question, Ms MacLeod, is why the hell you didn't stand up and tell Harpoon to keep his paws off the child care agreements the Martin government had reached with the provinces. Those agreements would have provided day care for families right across Canada but the Tory party has a history of talking centre and passing laws on the far right and that's a prime example. They hacked and whacked and flailed away at those agreements, scuppered the lot and brought in universal peanut payments that put uneeded money in the pockets of their friends and left adequate childcare for everyone else in limbo.

Well, Kinsella's remarks are a tempest in a cookie jar. It was a dumb remark but anyone who knows Warren knows what a crock of shit it is to try to make him out to be the same as Mike Harris or the rest of the raving red necks in the Tory party. You want misogynists you don't have to look far in the PC ranks - just peek over John's shoulder and there they be.