Politics in the Internet age

We've heard a lot of dumbass gaffes by politicians of late. From Lee Richardson's comments about immigrants, to John Shavluk's anti-Semitic rants, to Simon Bédard advocating use of force against Mohawk protesters, to the NDP's own Andrew McKeever's appalling rants, none of the four national parties has escaped. Warren Kinsella has this to say about it:

• LOSERS: Blogging politicos! In the past three days, I’ve been interviewed half-dozen times – by the CBC, by the Hill Times, by many others – about idiots like Ryan Warawa. Why are so many gaffes happening to so many supposedly-smart political people, journalists want to know. My answer: everyone, me included (cf. Cookiegate) says stupid things. All of the political parties have gotten into trouble with naked or idiotic or extremist or acid-dropping candidates in the online campaign. All of them! Why? Three things: (a) Google (b) the popularity of blogs and (c) the unique loudmouth culture of politicos. Taken together, those three things are lethal. And the gaffes aren’t over, either – not by a long shot.

To avoid this kind of thing in the future, parties should probably endeavour to find candidates well in advance of elections so they can be properly screened. Live and learn, I guess...