Andrew Pottymouth
I'm going to call Andrew Potter of Maclean's magazine Andrew Pottymouth from now on. Because when Andrew gets excited he turns to profanities to express himself.(That's a picture of Pottymouth to the left, striking his best Zoolander pose.)
Pottymouth is mad that I criticized his friend Peter Loewen for being the analyst behind the CBC's campaign website, called VoteCompass, that is actually a push-poll driving people to the Liberal Party.
Pottymouth marshalls all the swears he knows, and a few that he doesn't, in his thoughtful rebuttal. Not my style. But he's a PhD and I'm not, so maybe swearing is what the really smart people do when they want to prove a point.
Pottymouth says he's spitting mad because his friend, Peter Loewen, was subjected to "character assassination" by me and Brian Lilley, a Sun reporter.
Pottymouth calls Lilley and me "prostitutes", "despicable", and a bunch of four-letter words. You can read it here if you like foul language.
I went back and reviewed my column about Loewen, and here's all I said about him:
Perhaps he's taking the word of Peter Loewen, the "director of analytics" for the Vote Compass. Loewen just happens to have been a policy adviser for Michael Ignatieff's 2006 Liberal leadership campaign.
and I asked, about all the detailed demographic information collected by the website:
Who gets that voter data? Loewen does. Has he shared it with his former boss, Ignatieff? Does the CBC even know? Or care?
That's it.
The first point, that Loewen was Ignatieff's policy advisor in his leadership bid, is indisputable. And Pottymouth doesn't dispute it. The second point, that we don't know if Loewen has shared any voter ID with Ignatieff is a genuine question -- because the website's privacy policy does is silent on the matter, and the CBC-Liberal's spin-doctor, Jeff Keay, didn't answer it either. I think that's because Keay actually doesn't know -- as he told reporters, he's taking someone else's word for things.
But here's Pottymouth's central argument -- and the reason he's so full of venom and blood. He writes:
...as Peter Loewen himself told Lilley... Loewen did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 the he later did for Ignatieff... if you don't trust me... ask Tom Flanagan -- who tried to get Sun Media to kill the story for the very reasons I've given here, and was pointedly ignored.
Well, Pottymouth is a super-duper-smart PhD, and I'm not, so I obviously did what he said. I asked Tom Flanagan, my former professor if Loewen did in fact do "the same sort of work for Harper in 2004" as he did for Ignatieff -- that is, be his policy director.
And Flanagan said he did not. I've posted my exchange with Flanagan in full below. (And judge for yourself if Flanagan tried to "kill the story".)
Flanagan confirms that Loewen did not work for Harper at all -- let alone as a policy director.
Flanagan says Loewen's only involvement was to have some scholarly discussions with Flanagan about the election -- after it was done.
So Loewen was a partisan activist with Ignatieff, joining his leadership campaign in a prominent position. And Pottymouth says that he did the "same sort of work for Harper". But Flanagan denies that outright.
Question: did Pottymouth himself call Flanagan? Or is fact-checking only for stupid people who don't already "know" the truth?
Do you know what this is really about? I'll tell you. Well, actually Pottymouth tells you. It's about friendship, and cliques, and in-groups and out-groups.
As Pottymouth admits, he's personal friends with Loewen -- "I've had drinks with him in bars and been to parties at his house", he writes.
In other words, journalism to Pottymouth isn't about seeking the truth -- like calling up Tom Flanagan and actually checking things. It's about defending one's team -- in this case, a Liberal teammate, trying to pull a fast one about his "non-partisanship". It's hilarious that Pottymouth still pretends not to know Loewen's partisan stripe, despite Loewen's widely-reported role with Ignatieff.
I guess a PhD can concoct some theory wherein Loewen was some sort of non-partisan party supporter.
Pottymouth hates me and Lilley not because we got our facts wrong. We got them right -- as Flanagan concedes. Pottymouth hates me and Lilley because we dare to operate outside the national, liberal media consensus.
That group of intellectually inbred Ottawa dittoheads just agree with each other all day long: Harper is evil; Conservatives are stupid; gun-owners are dangerous; Omar Khadr is a folk hero; Ignatieff is brilliant; global warming is real and other people should change their lives because of it; Obama is the messiah, etc., etc.
Loewen and Pottymouth aren't just friends. They're practically family. It's a fancy family -- the ruling class, or at least those who really, desperately think they ought to be part of the ruling class. So they see Ignatieff as their role model, natch -- he's a PhD and a count to boot. Whereas Lilley and me are dumb shlubs working for a mere tabloid newspaper. And we don't have our PhDs.
Let me say this: I actually really like Maclean's magazine. I think it's interesting, surprising, beautiful and often smart. It also happens to be edited by a guy who, culturally, is a whole lot more like Lilley and me and the Western knuckledraggers Pottymouth despises, and whole lot less like Pottymouth and his fellow preeners.
That's all Pottymouth cares about: his friends. But you and I care about facts. So let's look at VoteCompass together -- why don't you take a minute and do the following two experiments.
Here's the first experiment. It only takes a minute. Go through the survey and answer every question with "no opinion" as your answer. Of course, skip the part where it asks you to choose parties or leaders (that would be taking an opinion). Surprise! The CBC push-poll says you're a Liberal.
Even though you gave absolutely no legitimate reason to be pegged as a Liberal. Like I say; Loewen and friends rigged the system.
Now try a completely different approach. Go through the survey again and simply alternate clicking "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree". Again, skip the section where it asks you to rate the party leaders or parties themselves -- but answer the 30 policy questions with alternating extreme agreement and disagreement. Surprise! The CBC push-poll says you're a Liberal.
My favourite part of the Liberal-CBC campaign site is the questions is uses to tell you that you're a Liberal. Amongst them are questions about abortion laws and same-sex marriage laws. The Conservatives have upheld these laws for five years, and have never introduced a bill or campaign promise to change them; yet the Liberal-CBC website uses them to distinguish what party you support. They also use support for the Afghanistan war, which is quite something given that it was a war started by the Liberals and continued by the Tories.
Pottymouth can't deny that the push-poll is rigged in favour of the Liberals. He can't deny that his drinking buddy worked as an Ignatieff partisan. So really, all he's left with is his own anger and frustration -- and some childish name-calling.
Here is my full correspondence with Tom Flanagan. Maybe Pottymouth might try picking up the phone, too, instead of merely taking the word of his drinking buddy.
From: tflanaga@ucalgary.ca
Date: April 5,
2011 10:39:14 AM EDT
To: "Ezra
Levant" <ezra@ezralevant.com>
Subject: Re:
Peter Loewen
The story has gotten a little
distorted, I think. He was never on my
payroll. I think maybe five
years ago I sent him some data when we were
emailing back and forth about a
research project of his. I really can't
recall the details.
More recently, I sponsored him for a
post-doctoral fellowship at the U of
C, but he got a more lucrative offer
from UBC. I also invited him to
visit our campus a couple of years
ago and speak to my biopolitics course.
He's part of an American team
studying genetic influences on human
political behaviour.
So you can see I think very highly of Peter.
Tom
Hi Tom. The CBC says Peter Loewen
worked for you. Can you please tell me
when, and in what way?
Was it partisan or political work, or scholarship?
Thanks!
Ezra
From: tflanaga@ucalgary.ca
Date: April 6,
2011 11:19:15 AM EDT
To: "Ezra
Levant" <ezra@ezralevant.com>
Subject: Re:
Peter Loewen
Ezra, he was not a paid employee of
the national campaign in 2004. I
don't know what he may have done in a
local campaign. AFter the campaign,
I had a lengthy email correspondence
with him about some research he was
doing, and I think we shared some
data. But I don't remember the
details--it's now six or seven years
ago--and my emails from that period
are in the University of Calgary
archives and I can't conveniently consult
them. Tom
Thanks again for your info about
Peter. I see that Maclean's is claiming
that he worked on Harper's 2004 campaign (or his leadership campaign).
Did he? If so, in what capacity?
It is important to me to get my facts straight!
Yours most gratefully,
Ezra
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