Friday, October 13, 2006

Oh, Goody...

David Frum has decided to liveblog the Woodward book, an interesting bit of jargon that means he reads a few pages until inspired, then types out his thoughts as separate blog entries as he goes.

I'm largely indifferent to Frum's opinions, choice of friends, and any skills he may or may not have as a writer. But this exercise proves that he is officially a lousy editor. Why would you willingly inflict a play-by-play on your readership instead of judging a product as a whole? It's clear that Frum's going to dismiss the book (as one of Bush's speechwriters, he's got his own spin on the action), and I can accept that. Everyone gets an opinion and all. But since we all know (Dave included) that all of these breathless I've-just-read-this-part-and-I've-GOTTA-tell-you missives are going to boil down to "I read the book, it sucked," maybe he could trim it down to those 6 words and spend more time on his hobbies?

And speaking of Canadians with US sympathies and ambitions, Stephen Harper claims that 'virtually all' of the Liberal leadership candidates are anti-Israel. I respectfully disagree, Ignatieff notwithstanding. I think Ignatieff's far more likely to be a bad public speaker with an inflated sense of self importance than anti-Israel. I'm more interested in the fact that Harper, having dropped the comment, has conveniently not backed it up with anything.

He could have made this a real issue by discussing the candidates, pointing out their positions and comments in the press, illustrating exactly why he thinks most (unspecified, of course) of the candidates are anti-Israel. He hasn't bothered. is this part of his strategy, or simply a passive-aggressive 'because I said so' theatric? My problem with Harper is that I never know.

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