More tar babies: PMO points at The Star and Lloyd Axworthy

PMO staff have their “Tar Baby” file open and, in defence of Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, have pointed me at the following uses of the phrase “Tar Baby” by, as they say, “a national newspaper, one from a national reporter, and one from a former Liberal Cabinet Minister.”

The “national” newspaper is, ahem, actually a very good metropolitan newspaper that happens to be available in many other cities in Canada. That would be the Toronto Star which, on Friday, March 7, 2008, ran an editorial entitled “Cynical PQ bid to rebrand party” containing this phrase:

The PQ intends to campaign on its latest plan to get Quebecers behaving as if they already are independent. The party promises a “sovereignty manifesto,” a provisional Quebec constitution, and a “Quebec citizenship,” whatever that might be. It will demand more powers from Ottawa and seek more clout in international organizations. In federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion's eyes, Marois's effort to shake off the referendum tar baby is good news, even if Dian was clumsy in spelling out why.

[The entire editorial can be found here[PDF]]

The “national reporter” would be my friend Susan Delacourt, a senior writer for the Star, who, the PMO notes, wrote a story in 2004 about how then prime minister Paul Martin might exploit the issue of gay marriage for political gain and included this line:

Same-sex marriage has generally been treated like a political tar baby over the past few years, with most parties reluctant to whip up highly sensitive arguments touching on religion and deeply rooted social values. The Liberal caucus contains a significant number of MPs from rural and traditional small- town Canada, who have long argued that they could lose their seats if their government leans too far to the left on any social issue. [The PMO provided this citation. The Star owns the Hamilton Spectator: Susan Delacourt, “Martin could exploit gay-marriage gift,” The Hamilton Spectator, Friday, December 10, 2004]

And the PMO even goes all the way back to 2003 to find Liberal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy using the phrase in an interview with the Detroit Free Press.

“Nobody is saying you toss over your U.S. relations. Of course you don't. But it doesn't mean to say you have to become slavishly connected like some kind of tar baby with them.” [PMO Citation: Lloyd Axworthy, “Canada's new leader to improve U.S. ties,” Detroit Free Press, Thursday, December 11, 2003

The PMO “Tar Baby” researchers have also identified a “Tar Baby” sighting in one of Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert's pieces from last spring, in which Hebert wrote:

If the Liberals had been serious about triggering an election on the issue, they could have brought it in through the front door of a budget amendment and made it a condition for not defeating the government last week.

Tellingly, there was not a trace of the RESP initiative and the trickle of positive coverage it attracted to be found on the official website of the Liberal party yesterday. At this stage, the McTeague bill looks more like a Liberal tar baby than a party brainchild.

It will be interesting to see whether the Liberals do resuscitate this measure in their election platform and what, beyond partisan calculations, the arithmetic behind it will be. [Read the whole column]

And for extra reading, here's a piece, passed along to me by a friend who once was a Liberal staffer, from Time.com which looks at the issue after Mitt Romney, then Massachusetts governor used the phrase:

…the next print version of the Oxford American Dictionary will note that tar baby can have derogatory connotations. Which may help public figures avoid becoming ensnared by Br'er Fox more than a century after he set his little trap.

UPDATE: Final word to Poilievre himself.

6 thoughts on “More tar babies: PMO points at The Star and Lloyd Axworthy”

  1. I don't get it. A simple, “It was a poor choice of words and I didn't intend to offend anyone,” would make it go away. Now that they're foolishly digging in their heels it'll become an issue. Are they stupid or stubborn?

  2. I'm shocked! Lloyd Axworthy granted an interview to the Detroit Free Press?
    OK, I'm being silly, imitating the kind of outrage expressed in Liberal quarters when the PM gave interviews south of the border.
    In a way, commenter Robert McClelland makes a good point. Digging in one's heels just makes the comment have a longer span (spin ?) in the news cycle.
    OTOH, have we gotten to the point where we now have to apologize for everything? Someone somewhere at any given time will take offence at something one says. Soon we’ll have to ban the use of “licorice” – or maybe it already has a connotation I’m not aware of, as I was not aware about “tar baby.”
    So, in the words of the inimitable Steve Martin: “Well, excuuuuse me!”
    And for what it’s worth, from Wiki: “… the history of 'the tar baby' in its original form by far precedes the accusations of its racist associations. … “

  3. When someone wants to get on a soapbox (and I am not only talking Libs here, the CPC can be JUST as bad) and demand an apology for anything and everything that may somehow, someway, offend someone somewhere we have gotten past all point in reason.
    It is called crying wolf. Politicians cry wolf way to often (like this instance) such that they have cheapened the process of apologizing for actual slurs that DO take place.

  4. What annoys me the most is that I've been so diligent in avoiding the use of the term 'tar baby' in my own blogs in reference to Lisa Raitt and the Chalk River file.
    It's such a great image, it's a shame for it to go to waste.

  5. Poilievre already explained that he didn't know of any other possible connotation for that term and that it wasn't his intent to offend anybody. But if the opposition wants him to come after him demanding some full apology for a term that many Canadian journalists have used in the recent past, then who's really foolishly digging in their heels here?

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