Gimbol's diatribe and screed

Media leaping across the credability divide

I saw this story last night about Jason Kenny "talking to a banned terrorist group" and I didn't want to comment too soon. What got me was the muted response from the usual suspects that would normally jump all over this and vilify a consevative as proof yet again of "scary conservatives". Lets review then:

1- The headliner from CTV says "Tory MP attended rally for group on terror list". Okay, then what group would that be? The televised story won't mention it, but they did have the decency to make note that the story is attributed to the Toronto Star
2- The TORSTAR story does mention who the "group " is and that when Kenny was invited they neglected to mention that they had ties to MEK.
3- The political front for this group is now claiming support from the government with a picture posted on their website of Kenny speaking to the rally on Parliament Hill, which Kenny admits he did not know about.
4- Both sources note that it was a rally at Parliament Hill, however there is a disparity in the numbers attending. The Star quoted Kenny "about 30 in attendance" CTV quotes the websites "dozens", Whose right?

Here's some quotes with links.

First CTV

"(Kenney) started his speech by welcoming participants to the rally on his own behalf as well as the Prime Minister and stressed that the new Canadian government would work hard to establish fundamental freedoms in Iran," it says.The group, which describes itself as the parliament-in-exile of the Iranian resistance, has been lobbying to persuade governments in the United State and United Kingdom to remove it from their terror blacklists.

And the story from the Star with the appropriate parts highlighted

The NCRI website says the April rally that Kenney attended was organized by "the Committee in Defence of Human Rights in Iran.".......

He said he did not know the rally was in support of PMOI prisoners. He said it was a small crowd of about 30 people. "I told them I would pass by if I could. And I was running up to the Hill, I just literally grabbed a megaphone and said that the Canadian people would stand in solidarity with the Iranian people in their wish for respect for human dignity and human rights and democracy, and these were universal aspirations that all people in every country deserve to have respected, and you know, our government will stand for those universal values. "I honestly don't recall any particular grievance that they had about any particular person in Iran or Iraq or somebody who's pending execution. At least that wasn't brought to my attention." Kenney said he is well aware that the PMOI is also known as the MEK and is listed as a terrorist group. He then specifically recalled questioning the man who invited him ? whose name he said he could not recall ? at a meeting in Kenney's office after the parliamentary committee meeting. He asked if the man had any ties to "those radicals in the People's Mojahedin. And he laughed or denied it or something." "I wanted to be sure there wasn't a connection," said Kenney. "I came away with the impression that there was no connection whatsoever." Kenney said he also later asked a staffer to double-check the background of the Committee for Human Rights in Iran to be sure it was a mainstream organization. The staffer said he couldn't "seem to find anything problematic about them."......
......On Tuesday, Kenney slammed a trio of opposition MPs who visited Lebanon and who called for a dialogue with Hezbollah, which has a political wing and elected members in the Lebanese government, in order to reach a peace plan. Kenney compared Hezbollah to the German Nazi party of the 1930s and said there should be no talks with a terrorist organization even if it boasts democratic support. "We need to learn the lessons of history," Kenney told a news conference. "There was another political party in the past which had democratic support, which provided social services, which played an important role in the political life of Germany in the 1930s, which was also dedicated to violence against the Jewish people."
Peggy Nash and company were explicitly talking about negotiations with Hezbollah, a banned illegal terrorist organization. "I, of course, would never advocate the delisting of the MEK or the People's Mojahedin or any other organization deemed by our security and intelligence agencies to be a terrorist entity."

So if you read the whole story instead of just relying on the headliner you come away with a totally different point of view of just what happened.

If you just pick up on the headline scrolling across the CTV newsnet screen, you think the conservative MP is being hypocritical, read the whole story and and you find out Kenny was duped into speaking to a very small gathering saying nothing more than what was government policy, whereas the same article very clearly points out the foreign policy missteps of the liberal and NDP parties.

The only surprise was that these details where written in the Toronto Star.
As Joel over at PTBC would say "that ain't liberal".

posted by gimbol @ 3:55 AM