Worst National Post Columnist

I was originally going to poll Blatchford vs Kay vs Margaret Wente but Conrad Black stepped up to the plate with this hard-to-get-through advocacy of Jordan Peterson's pointless anti-pronoun crusade (which has obsessed the NP Full Comment section of late) and I had to expand my range.

Conrad Black. Other than him, is the G&M really any worse?

In my limited exposure, Kay seems the most repulsive.

putting Black on any worst list is unfair to the rest

I think it's still really between Kay and Blatchford for me.

is the G&M really any worse?

If you're asking whether the NP is any worse than the G&M, Wente alone might balance the scales, it's true. But I submit for consideration:

Blatchford managing to be a champion of [Removed Illegal Link], um, expect when it might necessitate trigger warnings for a snowflakey small-town girl. And then there's this beaut, something of a triumph of incoherence. And all of this inspired by the ultimate non-issue: a professor who is protected by tenure who is making a statement of saying he will refuse to address transgender students by their third-person pronouns of choice, something I have never had to do (because I almost never need to refer to students with third-person pronouns), and something which it is highly unlikely will actually be enforced due to the Charter amendment he is protesting.

Kay handily gives us all of her columns in one place here. Anti-intellectual highlights for me include this meditation on Shakespeare ("I had an experience that illustrates the opposite of the hobbyhorse I want to flog. But you see, the point is that this actual, hugely popular, and well-funded experience is endangered because of a bunch of assertions with zero supporting evidence. Also cutural elites, a terms which doesn't include me, despite my regular opinion column in a national newspaper"). There's also this incredible slice of 50s-style Red Scare paranoia

I think it's still really between Kay and Blatchford for me.

is the G&M really any worse?

If you're asking whether the NP is any worse than the G&M, Wente alone might balance the scales, it's true. But I submit for consideration:

Blatchford managing to be a champion of free speech and academic freedom, um, expect when it might necessitate trigger warnings for a snowflakey small-town girl. And then there's this beaut, something of a triumph of incoherence. And all of this inspired by the ultimate non-issue: a professor who is protected by tenure who is making a statement of saying he will refuse to address transgender students by their third-person pronouns of choice, something I have never had to do (because I almost never need to refer to students with third-person pronouns), and something which it is highly unlikely will actually be enforced due to the Charter amendment he is protesting.

Kay handily gives us all of her columns in one place here. Anti-intellectual highlights for me include this meditation on Shakespeare ("I had an experience that illustrates the opposite of the hobbyhorse I want to flog. But you see, the point is that this actual, hugely popular, and well-funded experience is endangered because of a bunch of assertions with zero supporting evidence. Also cutural elites, a terms which doesn't include me, despite my regular opinion column in a national newspaper"). There's also this incredible slice of 50s-style Red Scare paranoia

voted blatchford, her court reporting makes this country worse

2 or 3 of those writers are pretty good! glad they are whining about the terrible electoral reform comittee

Yeah, I don't think they're all bad. I'm just including them all as options to be fair. Coyne is often great imo, despite being p hard right (by Canadian standards) on economics and foreign policy. At least he has strong consistent principles and critical thinking abilities and is never partisan.

Agreed on coyne, he's the best of the lot

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted for Kay in the end.

despise rex murphy. old blowhard whose two biggest bugbears are people who believe in climate change, and political correctness. please die you ghoul.

not that aware of many of these folks tho, i.e. only about half

very weird thing to me about canada is that despite being a more politically liberal place than britain in many ways the big newspapers are all tory garbage

Well: http://www.postmedia.com/brands/

True, though we fortunately don't have anything as miserably craven as the Daily Mail - even something like the Toronto Sun looks good in comparison. This poll is a murderer's row of reaction, though and it's tough to single out the worst (you can make different arguments for each).

I haven't been keeping up with the Post, so I'm not sure if he regularly contributes columns anymore, but Robert Fulford is also awful and would make good company with the above.

I know it's not the National Post but my write in vote is Wente - who I guess still has a job as a professional troll at the G&M because they need the clickbait and "provocative" opinion pieces - in large part because she probably has a wider readership and isn't entirely preaching to the converted.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

There's really no wrong answer out of those four.

The injustice!:

"Now, he has approved [the Kinder Morgan pipeline]. But apparently that’s it. We did not see a whole cabinet behind him when he did. We did not see a group of oil workers, pipe-fitters, union men, carpenters, engineers and technicians there, either, as a kind of counterpoint to the Paris show, for example, to demonstrate how great the constituency was for a new pipeline, and how many there are in industry and the trades, and all supporting activities, who would so much benefit from its construction. No special photographer was retained at substantial cost to document every nuance of the announcement for history (and immediate tweeting)."

Robson stepping up his game: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/john-robson-the-left-may-not-trust-big-government-but-it-sure-loves-wielding-its-power

"Vivienne Westwood [who actually was a Tory for a while but nm] and 'Hollywood' said some stuff about government so the political left are hypocrites because the left. Also some stuff about weirdos and Trump and a lot about how I feel but self-absorption is bad and stuff."

really starting to think of the postmedia network as breitbart north. if one of the more wing-nutty conservatives wins the leadership i expect them to stand four-square behind them.

Oh, totally plausible.

I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the alt-right thread: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-the-enlightenment-has-mutated-and-this-threatens-our-civilization

Setting everything else aside for the moment, I really relished that Conrad Black was expressing concern about "inflammation of the human ego".

This is jaw-dropping, even for me: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/an-opportunity-to-make-their-displeasure-known-government-pulls-funding-of-pronoun-professor

How entitled does someone need to be to assume that when he doesn't receive a prestigious $400K grant, it's because of a plot against him? How manipulative or gullible is Blatchford? Is the comments section high? etc.

In fact, he’s indisputably a great communicator: His education videos have been viewed by eight million people, and he’s popular on Twitter.

I've listened to some of this guy's videos and he is not a great communicator.

Anyway, this is a research grant. What does Twitter have to do with it?

Yeah, that's a special one. I'm p sure SSHRC committees review applications blind anyway?

(Not that it even really matters at this point, given that Peterson has no evidence to support his suspicion.)

Has ILX dissected Jordan Peterson yet? I think he became a public figure just last year, and he's completely ridiculous.

Yes, this asshole is getting a lot more press than he deserves.

My understanding of how this all got started goes something like this:

Transgender colleague: I prefer to be called by (x) pronoun.
Peterson: I can't possibly be expected to remember all of these ridiculous gender categories.
Transgender colleague: You don't. Just please refer to me by (x).
Peterson: Hate crime! The left are the real fascists!

This is something else: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-whatever-else-kavanaugh-was-right-that-due-process-is-down-the-drain

Always sucks when this shit seeps north

If it is not to minimize the gravity of committing sexual assault, what is even the point of recounting the personal experience she does in the way that she does here? How does it bear on her thesis concerning Kavanaugh?

It’s not the first time she’s done that. Might have been during the Ghomeshi thing, the whole “It didn’t happen to me that way in my life, hence they are either lying or it’s their own fault” thing. She seems like a deeply terrible person.

Biggest 'story' on the front page. It's like they've abandoned any pretence of being a serious journalistic institution: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-its-ideology-vs-science-in-psychologys-war-on-boys-and-men

oh i read that garbage

"if men are so toxic, why do fatherless kids have so many problems huh? there are literally no other possible explanations for this phenomenon!"

which is to say: I don't even have a clear opinion on the APA document, and Peterson might even have a point or two despite all the conspiratorial hoo-ha, but I don't recall the Globe or the Star highlighting charged opinion pieces as top-of-the-front-page stories. 2xp

"Why is this boy angry?" indeed

he needs an editor so bad, I don't think anyone could get through that whole piece

don't know that putting tendentious opinion columns on the front page is in fact a new thing for the national post however

ding dong

Deadest National Post columnist

(Rex Murphy just looks the deadest)

national post has the temerity to call her a "tenacious voice for victims" as if the Rehtaeh Parsons column isn't still hosted on their website

I think my own antipathy towards her was in place before any of the things itemized here--in the '90s, at the Sun.

http://www.readpassage.com/christie-blatchford-doesnt-deserve-her-eulogy/

(One chance to read this before they want you to subscribe.)

Yeah, there was an exceptional element of cruelty that really did make her the worst.

The answer is still Barbara Kay:

Here is what HBG should have done: First, publicly wished Ronan Farrow a polite but firm farewell. Then sought out the protest ringleaders amongst its staffers and summarily fired them. Finally, sent all employees a memo notifying them that institutional loyalty and deference to executive decisions are standpoints of HBG culture. Staffers who chose not to resign should have been expected to respect these principles in the future or face consequences. Plum jobs in publishing are not a dime a dozen. These strategies would have worked like a charm.