Hypocrisy your name is Hudak

I accidentally tuned in to the Mike Coren show tonight. It was a fluke and I was on my way to a baseball channel when suddenly Peter Kormos and Kathleen Wynne and this swarthy looking character in a blue suit, blue shirt and blue tie, filled the screen. Turns out he's a Tory - his gang colors gave him away!

I have managed to remain out of the orbit of Tim Hudak. He belongs to the troglodytes in the Tory party, not terribly thoughtful but more like a trained seal spouting the Republican philosophy of life and government, and therefore of no interest to me at all. If I have to spend time with bitter, grasping people I'd rather the real thing than pale imitations. Hudak supported Jim Flaherty against Ernie Eves and that tells you all you need to know both about his political judgment and his political place in the fermament.

Tonight for the first time I actually forced myself to listen to this guy, who looks and sounds like a chipmunk on speed, and makes about as much sense. He was pummelling Wynne about all the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing sector over the last four years. He went on a long, rambling, stupid rant, making errors of fact at every turn. He blames McGuinty single handedly for all those jobs that are gone. Hudak skates over the 300,000 new jobs that have been created by trying to claim they are all minimum wage jobs, which is a crock. The jobs created in the auto sector alone certainly are not, nor are the jobs being created in the high tech sector, in small business and in medical research etc. Wynne tried to battle back and her comments were okay although Hudak, who looks like he learned his manners in a pig sty, kept talking over her and using his deeper voice to drown her out.

Just once I'd like to see Wynne, or any of the Liberal women, tell an ignorant fart to fuck off when he's acting like an ignorant fart, as Hudak was. Wynne needs to be tougher, as do a number of the Liberal women.

Coren finally nailed Hudak's ass to the wall, although he let him off too quickly. Coren challenged Hudak to say what he'd do if he was the government and Hudak's face told it all - empty and flumoxed, with no clue in the world about what to do. Cutting taxes is the only mantra the Tory Tories know.

Eventually the free for all got around to talking about Mike Colle and Wynne acknowledged the process that was followed was terrible, pointed out the auditor general had found no political interference or chicanery but was scathing in his condemnation of the process. Colle resigned his seat in the cabinet, which was the right thing to do once the auditor ruled the process was way unacceptable, and McGuinty apologized. But that wasn't good enough for Hudak, who tried to make this the scandal of the century. Hell, it ain't even the scandal of the decade. That belongs to the Tories and Hudak's wife, Deb Hutton, who was involved up to her armpits in the Ipperwash scandal - and that was truly a scandalous event which cost an innocent man his life - so Hudak's puffery and blustering serves only to put him in the ranks of first class arseholes.

Hudak and Hutton - what a combo that is. Hutton was despised when she was Harris' "fix it" girl (she was referred to by Tory staff and bureaucrats alike as Premier Hutton) and even after she left Queen's Park, her acid dipped fingers were everywhere. She left to take a cushy job as a vice president at Hydro One and, in case your memory isn't too good, the company Tom Long worked for at the time, was paid $83,000 to recruit Hutton to Hydro One. Tom Long and Debbie Hutton worked on Harris' campaigns together so they clearly didn't know each other well enough to arrange for an interview for Hutton without $83,000 worth of work by Long. And did Hutton get the job? Was Harris a jerk and is the archbishop Anglican?

It was truly staggering, though, listening to Hudak try to compare Mike Colle's doling out of money to community groups as such a scandal. Hudak would have you believe that the $5.6 million (yeah - you heard right - $5.6 MILLION) that was paid out to Long and Leslie Noble and Paul Rhodes for Hydro One contracts, including personal consulting contracts worth up to $40,000 a month, was pure as the driven snow and value received for every nickle. And what was done to earn such fees? Well you might ask - the Tories refused to talk about it, look into it or even acknowledge it and it wasn't until after the McGuinty government was elected and started practising transparency and honesty in government that the amounts these guys were paid was made public.

So here we have Hudak on Coren's show tonight, knowing what he knows about his wife, Deb Hutton, and Long and Noble and Rhodes, all close buddies who have drunk deeply and long in the public trough, all deeply involved as part of Mike Harris' paid political staff at various times - Hudak the hypocrite has the unbelievable gall to suggest Mike Colle giving money to community groups is somehow even close to the filth and the stench around those Hydro One deals delivered when the Tories were in power. Go back and read the press reports when the Liberals finally forced Hydro One to make public this shameful sorrid chapter. Read about contracts that were backdated, contracts in which amounts were scratched out and increased by someone's mysterious pen, contracts that were all to "help" the Harris govt and Hydro One deal with the issue of privatization. Not one report was ever forthcoming. $5.6 MILLION to Tory back room hacks and Hudak has the unmitigated gall to criticize Mike Colle - he isn't fit to carry Colle's jock strap.

Why Wynne and Kormos didn't blow him out of the water is a mystery. This guy plans to be leader and premier one day and they're letting him get away with complete bullshit.

Final thought: why is it that Wynne and most of her female colleagues aren't made of the same tough, brassy, no shame stuff that Hutton and her ilk in the PCs are made of? Sandra Pupatello is the only woman in McGuinty's cabinet who has the tough street smarts Tory women seem to inhale with their first breath. There's the odd exception of course - Jane Pitfield is just a whiner and Liz Witmer wouldn't scare anyone - but most of those Tory women would cut your balls off without a second thought. I'd like to see a sharper edge on the Liberal women - they don't have to be ball busters but just once I'd like to see them punch back with vigor and precision.