The Post: The Great Right of the Excessive Right-Wing

I've often said that the journalism in the National Post--Canada's major right-wing rag and proud standard bearer for the Asper group--is quite good, it's the opinions and editorials that should be printed on thin, soft paper and left in outhouses for the apropriate purpose.

On the subject of Gary Goodyear, Canada's apparently-creationist of a science minister, the first person out the gate was Jonathan Kay, who shot his ignorance into the air like somthing from a porn movie, calling it "The Globe & Mail's appalling front-page smear on religion."

Today one shining editorial rose out of the mire. "Ignorance is not a civil right" says John Moore.

Alas, the Post's more usual stance was more accurately reflected in David (Death to Palestine) Asper's "editorial" entitled "The liberal war on faith."

The difference is that Mr. Moore is not being deliberately and willfully stupid about what being science minister in this country means.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating. No matter what Mr. Goodyear's personal beliefs are, any science minister should have had an answer for that question prepped and ready the moment he received the portfolio.

Failing to have one suggests either incompetence in his portfolio or an ideological devotion to religion over science that should scare the willies out of anyone in research, medicine, or education. The Minister must communicate with the public on science issues. Or at least that's the sort of thing ministers used to do until the ideologically hidebound and pathalogically secretive Conservatives were defaulted into power as a caretaker government.

Alas, Moore appears to be the Post's token Lib'rul. But for one shining moment, he lifted the discourse on the Editorial page beyond the normal pro-Conservative puffery and fulmination.

It is a moment Canada should treasure, the more so because they are so rare. At least among the Asper group of papers.