Friday, April 14, 2023

Just another "friendly sausage maker"?


The US media reaction to the news about 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a National Guard technology support staffer who leaked dozens of secret US documents - such a nice boy! patriotic! a devout Catholic! - reminds me of how Canadian media developed a "friendly sausage maker" meme back in 2020. 
Remember that in July 2020, a heavily-armed military reservist named Corey Hurren from Winnipeg drove 2,000 km to Ottawa with the idea of “arresting” our prime minister and he actually rammed through the gates to the grounds of the prime minister’s residence and wandered around looking for Trudeau before the RCMP finally noticed him and negotiated a surrender. 
Luckily, neither Trudeau nor Governor-General Payette were there at the time. 
The Canadian media turned this guy into “just a friendly sausage-maker” who didn’t really want to hurt anyone, not really, he just wanted to talk to someone about how hard it was to make a living during the pandemic and really, couldn’t we all just give this guy a break? 
It was a really bizarre reaction it has now become a meme among the Canadian left. 
And I still believe the media adopted this view as a way to minimize the errors made by the RCMP.
And the meme goes on: And now in America we are seeing the same thing today, a determined effort to minimize the danger: Tonight I am wondering if the motivation is the same, downplaying the problem to protect the reputations of military who apparently let this guy gather up, take home, and copy so much classified material.
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3 comments:

Cap said...

Totally agree that the media downplays right-wing extremism. What's with the constant need to put "Pastor" in front of Pawlowski's name? The guy's a street preacher, in other words, one of the crazy nuts you see ranting on street corners in every city. Why does the media call him pastor and thereby imply trustworthiness? Is he self- ordained or what? Nobody asks. And another thing nobody asked Garland at his press conference announcing the arrest of Teixeira for mishandling classified documents was "Why is Trump still at large for far worse offenses?"

5:14 am
Cathie from Canada said...

Absolutely. Its like the media decide who is the "sympathetic" character in any scenario and its always the right-winger, never Trudeau. Or Biden.

7:32 am
Anonymous said...

I read on another blog that the level of security clearance this person had is the same as about 3 million other federal employees and contractors. I'm surprised there haven't been more leaks (or more likely, there have and the public has not been told). The American government is a sieve.

7:52 am

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