From a globeandmail.com chat with Jeffrey Simpson on climate change policies:

Gary: ... In your estimation, what chance (if any) do you see of Harper doing an about-face and implementing an effective price on carbon once the campaign is over (assuming of course he wins the election)?

Obviously it would need to be branded as something different to allow him to save face.

Jeffrey Simpson: Gary, I see no chance of Mr. Harper doing what you propose.

Indeed if the Green Shitt fails then I, as someone who favors a carbon tax with offsets on personal and corporate income taxes, must concede that the policy will not be picked up politically for a long time. ...

This Sept. 5 Heather Mallick column at CBC.ca caused a stir.

In some ways, I'm not sure why. Except some of the reaction came from Fox News, and the Foxes and Mallicks of this world desperately need each other (thanks for the vid link, Mungo).

The column on the selection of Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate was a deliberate attempt to be provocative, and it provoked. But it's an easy trick to pull off when you throw around terms like "white trash," "porn actress look" and "hick vote."

I can think of a few similarly colourful epithets one could direct at the black and Jewish communities, if one wanted to stir up a reaction from them. Let's see if Mallick ever goes there.

But that's the thing. Calling conservative rural white people "white trash" when you're an elite liberal urbanite writing for your tribe is playing it very safe.

Afterthought

Here's some CBC reaction from a CP story:

The CBC said Saturday it had no plans to remove Mallick's article from its website despite the criticism.

"She's an opinion columnist, she expresses her opinion. Her opinions don't represent the views of CBC in general or CBC News in particular," said spokesman Jeff Keay.

"The people who object to her opinions have an opportunity to comment on the website as they've done."

Can anyone remember how CBC reacted in 2004 when Don Cherry said only French guys and Europeans wear visors?

Oh yeah: Harold Redekopp, then the executive VP of television, called Cherry's remarks "inappropriate and reprehensible" and put him on a seven-second delay.

There was no talk of how he was just an opinion columnist expressing his opinion. And statistically, it came out later Cherry was broadly correct. However, at the time, Redekopp said that CBC "categorically rejects and denounces (Cherry's) opinions" (here's the CBC.ca story).

Perhaps tolerance for intemperate remarks is growing at CBC. Or perhaps just tolerance for certain types of intemperate remarks.

Addendum

Back of The Book also has a take on the Palin-Mallick issue.

The CBC Editors blog is silent on this issue.

When talking about the U.S. economic crisis, "slid" and "gyrated" are in. "Meltdown" and "freefall" are out -- as are "crash," "pandemonium," "panic" and "apocalypse."

Jawed Ahmad describes his 10 months in U.S. custody in Afghanistan as "hell." The circumstances of the fixer and TV cameraman's detention and release remain murky.

The NYT's Frank Rich on the Rovian campaign strategy of Republican presidential nominee John McCain and the U.S. media.