Thursday, August 05, 2004
Bartlet's Familiar Pears
Before I proceed with the latest on the Public Affairs Bureau, I should like it noted that my bathroom is infested with fruit flies. This is a little odd inasmuch as it, being a bathroom, contains precious little fruit. My sister agrees that this is strange, noting that they should be in her bedroom, since she has a rotting nectarine in there. Sigh.
Anyway, I just thought I'd provide y'all with some examples of the sort of non-partisan public-serving work of the P.A.B.:
"The NDs' constant talk of price fixing shows how little they understand the way our cattle industry - and the free market - works."
"Our producers qualified for [BSE aid] programs on the basis of their cattle inventory. We're not going to ask them to open their books just because the NDs don't know the first thing about the agricultural sector."
The author of those statements, P.A.B. employee Ms. Terry Willock, described them as "not political", noting that "the minister considers those statements to be truth."
For those of you who haven't yet figured out why this is an outrage, allow me to explain: the role of the civil service is to implement government policy. The role of the P.A.B., as the communications arm of the civil service, is to communicate government policy (as well as to implement such portions of government policy as they are most competent to implement). There exists a distinction between government policy and the viewpoint of a minister - the former the Bureau is responsible for communicating, the latter it isn't. As soon as contempt for a given political party becomes government policy, we are no longer living in a democracy (and I say this as somebody who holds *all* political parties in contempt).
Funny, incidentally, that despite my highest hit count in weeks, not a single Tory supporter saw fit to explain why they plan to continue voting for Tory MLAs. Bazin? Brock? Abboud? Anybody?
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Before I proceed with the latest on the Public Affairs Bureau, I should like it noted that my bathroom is infested with fruit flies. This is a little odd inasmuch as it, being a bathroom, contains precious little fruit. My sister agrees that this is strange, noting that they should be in her bedroom, since she has a rotting nectarine in there. Sigh.
Anyway, I just thought I'd provide y'all with some examples of the sort of non-partisan public-serving work of the P.A.B.:
"The NDs' constant talk of price fixing shows how little they understand the way our cattle industry - and the free market - works."
"Our producers qualified for [BSE aid] programs on the basis of their cattle inventory. We're not going to ask them to open their books just because the NDs don't know the first thing about the agricultural sector."
The author of those statements, P.A.B. employee Ms. Terry Willock, described them as "not political", noting that "the minister considers those statements to be truth."
For those of you who haven't yet figured out why this is an outrage, allow me to explain: the role of the civil service is to implement government policy. The role of the P.A.B., as the communications arm of the civil service, is to communicate government policy (as well as to implement such portions of government policy as they are most competent to implement). There exists a distinction between government policy and the viewpoint of a minister - the former the Bureau is responsible for communicating, the latter it isn't. As soon as contempt for a given political party becomes government policy, we are no longer living in a democracy (and I say this as somebody who holds *all* political parties in contempt).
Funny, incidentally, that despite my highest hit count in weeks, not a single Tory supporter saw fit to explain why they plan to continue voting for Tory MLAs. Bazin? Brock? Abboud? Anybody?
