Thank goodness for Peter Mansbridge of the CBC…a very refreshing voice of calm and reason on this frenetic night of elections.
CBC being simulcast on CSPAN2…
Update 15 Feb 2021 – After the past few tumultuous years, I think I might need to explain what my state of mind was when I wrote this pretty pithy Facebook post.
I had voted that morning with Katie and Alex serving as my bodyguards before dropping them off at school, refused the “I Voted” sticker as was usual, and then watched the election results whilst flipping between the Canes/Devils tilt (which the Little DebbiesTM would win 3-2 in the shootout in a contest where Coach Bill Peters showed he had absolutely no clue how the coach’s challenge worked!).
As usual, my vote was doing it’s level best to be the kiss of death for whatever poor bastard of a candidate who earned my vote…even more than usual!
Once the game was done and the election results were the only thing left to watch because none of the networks had called the presidential race yet…an interesting dichotomy between the networks became patently obvious.
The more liberal-leaning networks like MSNBC, CNN, and most of the American national networks were getting increasingly desperate almost to the point of predicting that we were at the precipice of the angel pouring out the various bowls of the Revelation in a place called Armageddon.
Their sheer panic and fear-mongering would have been bad enough if it weren’t for Fox News cheering the likely complete repudiation of everything Mr Obama’s administration had ever done…even the good things that they’d actually have agreed with if they didn’t have such an ironclad grip on their editorial stance thanks to Rupert Murdoch.
When the election’s result was beyond doubt to me but not the networks and watching both tribes devolving into depression and manic glee, respectively…that was the point I had had enough of both tribes!
Enter the national treasure that is Peter Mansbridge of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation doing the election coverage for “The National”.
Even though it was clear he was echoing the thoughts of most Canadians at what was turning out to be the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States who the Canadians viewed with distrust at best and loathing at worst, he was also doing so with that characteristic calm demeanour that makes him a national treasure amongst broadcasters.
Unfortunately, not for our country who could use more newscasters like Peter Mansbridge in the major newsrooms.
His was the voice of calm and reason as he pointed out that even though the election didn’t go as was expected (or indeed hoped by the majority of Canadians). He pointed out that the sun would rise come morning and that both our countries had survived difficulties that were far worse before and that we would survive what was coming as long as we could work together in the areas that we agreed.
None of us had any idea what the next few years would be like in terms of the Operation Chaos that was the hallmark of the Trump administration. There were times they did get the policy right but honestly, most of the rest of the time they were either clueless, insensitive, or incompetent in pushing an America-first agenda to the exclusion of all other countries in the world which is not how a globally-interconnected world works.
As we would discover to our shame and horror when it comes to the utter mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has cost so many more American lives than was necessary and a sitting President actually fomenting insurrection and rebellion by urging his followers to storm Capitol Hill based on the lies and false narratives of his baseless conspiracy theories of a “stolen election” that he never offered any evidence of in over 60 court cases!
But Peter was right then and he is right now…our world has survived grim challenges such as these before and we survived Trump and we will eventually survive this pandemic.
I have no doubts that Mr Biden’s administration will have it’s own share of gaffes and missteps as they come to grips with dealing with very serious problems left to them by their predecessors. Indeed, there was the case of a deputy press secretary that threatened a reporter from Politico who was going to do an unfavourable story and was only suspended rather than outright fired as President Biden had said anyone who treated others with disrespect would be (that staffer has since resigned but the damage to Biden’s pledge was done).
However, it will the the leaders who are calm, rational, competent, and most of all determined who will bring our country and our world out of the darkness of the past few years.
Leaders who embody the essence of Peter Mansbridge in facing the problems that confront us with calm and reason! 🙂