The rot

On the second day of the 2007 election campaign, a caller to VOCM's Nightline program went on the air to deliver a stinging criticism of Danny Williams.

The criticism was so inconsequential that this blogger forgets what it was even all about. But the opening words of the caller's harshly critical remarks, directed towards the Premier and his government, are indelibly imprinted (and saved for posterity):

"Now, I love Danny Williams as much as the next person, but..."

Fast-forward nine months, and check out some of the comments on CBC's reporting of Danny's latest round of judge-bashing:

bbbc17 wrote:
Posted 2008/06/15at 9:55 AM ET
I too have supported this administration in the past fiscally & probably will in the future. But surely, the Premier must realize how embarrasising his office is looking in the eyes of the public.

mike_d_1001 wrote:
Posted 2008/06/14at 2:44 PM ET
Bad protocol....... Danny, who I generally agree with, is stepping out of bounds here

SpikeySnow wrote:
Posted 2008/06/13at 10:20 PM ET
I'm a big Danny supporter but with all due respect....BUTT OUT DANNY....

It's one thing, a scary thing, for the political culture at the top to adopt the ethical compass of a tin-pot third-world dictatorship. Which it has. In spades.

But for ordinary people to timidly proffer their criticism of the regime, and only after prefacing or footnoting their criticism with professions of their support for it?

That's quite another, a much scarier thing, that the political culture, at the grassroots, has now taken on the attributes of Mugabe's Zimbabwe, or Brezhnev's Soviet Union.