Ignatieff campaign's anti-Chinese slur receives massive media coverage

Earlier this month, Michael Ignatieff's campaign aide, Warren Kinsella, wrote that he had eaten "BBQ cat" at a Chinese restaurant in Ottawa. Of course, that's not true -- it was just Kinsella's pejorative jab at what Chinese Canadians eat.

Now, most normal people would call that a slightly off-colour joke. But Kinsella isn't "most people". He's a politically correct censor, who doesn't hesitate to accuse his political rivals of racism at the drop of a hat.

Perhaps Kinsella just didn't have his human rights radar on. After all, the Liberal caucus doesn't have a single Chinese-Canadian MP in it, so maybe he just let down his guard. Maybe it was Kinsella's trademark vulgarity -- his website is littered with profanity and insults. Or maybe Kinsella thought he was "kicking ass" somehow, to borrow the title of one of his books. In the past, that ass-kicking has included attacking a Christian who believes in the Book of Genesis, and attacking a young woman who dared to enter the man's world of politics. Christians, women, Chinese -- who's next?

Realizing the staggering political stupidity of his unfunny joke, Kinsella quickly deleted it from his website, but not before plenty of people saved it. That attempt at revising history is an indicator that Kinsella knew that he had said something beyond the pale. You can see a snapshot of Kinsella's blog on the subject at Kate's website, here.

David Akin, CanWest's National Affairs correspondent, wrote that Kinsella's racist gaffe was "likely to make headlines on blogs only." Well, that was true in the English language press. But the Liberal party's slur received massive coverage in the Chinese media -- where it counts in this case.

Here's the huge Sing Tao newspaper -- with a readership of over 200,000, making it one of the largest newspapers in the country -- with a story on the subject, including a hilarious screen shot of Kinsella looking very white and very old (see screen capture, above). They actually ran two separate stories on the subject, including this one on Jason Kenney's criticism of Kinsella's bigotry. That's about as many column inches as they gave the whole budget.

Here's another major Chinese-Canadian newspaper's coverage of the Liberal slur. And another. And another. Here's another newspaper that put the story on the front page. The photo of the Chinese-Canadian Conservative who criticized Kinsella was almost as large as the photo of Ignatieff.

Those are just the print media. Chinese language Fairchild Radio and A1 Chinese Radio also went full tilt on the subject as a talk radio subject -- and more Chinese language talk shows are scheduled for Friday.

That's not a bad day's work for the master spin doctor -- and he's probably oblivious to it. On what was supposed to be Ignatieff's big day, Kinsella made himself the story -- and added another layer of evidence that the Liberal Party is not a friendly place for Chinese voters -- a lesson the Liberal Party repeatedly teaches, through masters like Kinsella and Mike Klander.

But Sing Tao and the others had better watch out. Because Michael Ignatieff's campaign has a nasty habit of trying to sue journalists into silence if they ask embarrassing questions.