Permission to speak

Letter-writer Maurice E. Adams takes issue with Russell Wangersky taking issue with Danny Williams taking issue with what he thought he was told that big ol' meanie Randy Simms said about him on the radios:

But the problem with Mr. Wangersky's position, and with Randy Simms' approach, was and is that Randy was not (and repeatedly did not) ask the premier any questions on the issue itself. Randy didn't do what Mr. Wangersky says should be done - that is, ask questions on the issue.

The issue was the oil deal.

That's what the issue was? Says who, Maurice?

You see, the wierd thing about this whole "freedom of speech" nonsense is that not only do people have the right to choose what they say, they also have the right to choose what they say stuff about. (And what they ask stuff about: some of the questions that weren't asked last week got answered today anyway.)

Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — say that "the issue" is the Hibernia South deal.

The issue. Singular.

Simms, according to Maurice, "wanted to discuss any other issue but the oil deal itself". Somehow, even if true (which it patently isn't) this is a bad thing.

Never mind that The Issue — the Hibernia South deal — is itself part of a broader set of issues — the economy, provincial financial priorities, the rural-urban divide. Nope. Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — view the world, like computers, in binary. Something is The Issue. Or it is not The Issue. Anything else does not compute.

But set all that aside, Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — are annoiad that mean ol' Randy Simms didn't ask Himself about The Issue. Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — are upset that:

While the premier repeatedly tried to focus the discussion on the topic at hand, Randy would have none of it - over and over again... the premier should have been permitted to speak to the topic.

You see, Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — the thing is, Danny called Randy.

Or, more elaborately, Danny exercised his free will to place a call to the VOCM producer, and exercised his free speech to not talk about The Issue either, but rather to berate the good radio host, in essence, for being insufficiently toadyish and Pollyanaesque.

What's more, Maurice — and presumably the Eighth Floor — is that according to the transcript of the Dantrum posted by Geoff Meeker, after excluding some banal initial pleasantries (and in retrospect, listening to the audio again, you can already tell in the opening seconds from His tone that it's not going to remain banal or pleasant), and ignoring the untranscribable portions in which host gives as good as guest, and simultaneously, Randy Simms gets in 190 clear words.

The Premier? 567.

A short exchange, to be sure, in more than one sense of the word "short". But you see, Maurice, unless they were uttered in the voice-over parts of the exchange, the words "Hibernia" or "South" — The Issue — were not among those words at all.

If Danny Williams out-motormouthed Randy Simms, and yet still didn't get to speak to The Issue before the Big Giant Sook slammed the phone down, whose fault was it?

Suggested answer: not Randy Simms'.