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Cover Story

The Killing-off-Rachel Rally

By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, July 5, 2005

Toronto-- When Canadian journalism tilts trashy tabloid, it fizzles out. Canadians, by and large, are pointedly polite. Remarkably unassuming, they tend to shy away from newspaper wars and the lives of media celebrities.

Circumspect Canadians don't really care that "George Washington was a woman!" and the "Mother of his country. " (Weekly World News, July 4 Collector's edition).

Canada may be bigger in landmass than its southern neighbor, but is smaller in confidence and absolutely dwarfed by Uncle Sam in population.

Holding top star status on the short list of Canadian celebs are the two sons of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. While the Trudeau boys don't dress up like Nazis and smoke cigarettes at cucumber-sandwich-and-tea garden parties like some British bluebloods do, when alexander (Sasha) Trudeau stood up to be counted last week, he laid bare the peculiar, apologetic, Canadian political psyche by showing up in court to rescue suspected terrorist, Syrian Hassan almrei.

Now that Canada's scandal-ridden Liberals have made the Land of the Maple Leaf the third country worldwide to legislate on same-sex marriage--managing to pull it all off while in minority government status--you'd think that there would be plenty of fodder to send enterprising journalists digging.

as the official Canadian correspondent for Fox News' Numero Uno The O'Reilly Factor, the outspoken and humourous Rachel Marsden qualifies as Canada's latest media celebrity.

When Marsden became the National Post's latest acquisition, competing media went into purple prose pique mode. Marsden's twice-a-week columns, in a daily newspaper that some suspect the aspers of Winnipeg are slowly inching over to the lib-left, are attracting more enemies from the right than the left.

Marsden's boyfriend blues are right up there on the same scale as Conservative Party Deputy Leader Peter MacKay's Belinda betrayal. Unfortunately, there were no cows around for Marsden to milk, and no dogs with which to pose when the media came on the run. Marsden, who has never in her life been convicted of a crime, is now being portrayed as a "criminal". Like many young women making their way through the dating scene, she's had her share of trouble with bogus boyfriends. Unlike other young women, however her personal life has become tabloid fodder.

Readers can always Google rather than ogle Marsden to make up their own minds. But the media, it seems has already made up theirs.

The first media outlet to jump feet first into Marsden's personal life was the sanctimonious Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Bill O'Reilly, who along with Fox News was trashed in the same segment, brought her onto the O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly had interviewed Marsden frequently and anyone who watches his television show will know it's because young Marsden's points are well presented and she normally has something significant to talk about.

Next the Toronto Star's media columnist antonias Zerbisias moved in for the kill, complaining about the "near-pornographic images of the columnist in skimpy lingerie" on her website, a line used word-for-word in the next foray into Marsden's past, originating from, of all places, the unabashedly conservative Western Standard.

The kindest thing Western Standard scribe Kevin Steele wrote about Marsden is that her "latest incarnation–as a vociferous, right-wing, pro-Bush, Muslim-bashing anne Coulter knock-off–has lefty media insiders tittering over the state of conservative commentary in Canada. and for that very reason, more than a few conservatives wishing that she would just go away."

Marsden meanwhile can't be poofed away like the wispy remains of a dandelion.

The worst thing written about Marsden by Steele, in the opinion of this writer, not libelous only by virtue of positing it in question form was: "How does a serial stalker, convict and fraud artist end up hottest young conservative pundit?"

as life and age would have it, I know all the players in the latest "Killing Off Rachel media assignment. Peter Worthington, who never met Marsden, told Steele he wouldn't be in the same room with her.

It's difficult to dignify the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente with any kind of attention. Wente, whom I've never met, told Steele "more important than the embarrassment Marsden may be causing her colleagues, is the damage she'll do the cause of conservatives."

Wente went on to say, "Marsden's attempt to mimic the bulldog rhetoric of Coulter can only make matters worse. "The job of the Canadian right at the moment is to reach out to wary Ontarians," said Wente, who said she considers herself a conservative."

at the job for years, Wente has made no difference in improving the ignominious state of the Conservative Party. Coulter is the only Conservative pundit to have ever made the cover of Time Magazine, an honour that somehow missed Wente.

The job of Canadian conservative journalists is to report on the facts like Marsden does, and not to "reach out to wary Ontarians".

"She's convinced that Canadian centrists `would rather cut their throats than vote for the Liberals again.' But she says most Canadians, `are simply not convinced that the right has shed itself of its lunatics--and here's one,"

wrote Steele.

all recent polls indicate that Canadians rather than "cut their throats" would vote the Liberals back in should an election be called.

There was no criticism leveled at Marsden for her professionalism, writing and journalistic skills. More than anything else, the Western Standard seems worried that Marsden is somehow making the Conservatives look bad.

Mission impossible, Kevin and Company. Stephen Harper's Conservatives already shot themselves in both feet and continue to do so.

In fairness, I also know both Marsden and Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant. I admire both, but can't help secretly wish that the Standard would spend more of its time investigating corrupt Liberal politicians and step out of the personal lives of upcoming journalists, who happen to be very bright but working for the competition.

To give Levant his due, his response to my emailed query as to why Kevin Steele could spend so much time going after a conservative colleague rather than the Liberals, was immediate and courteous.

In a subsequent telephone conversation, Levant was adamant in his criticism of young Marsden, and we left off by having to agree to disagree.

Neither Levant nor Steele has ever met Marsden, although Steele says in his article that she failed to answer his emails for an interview.

Marsden says she didn't answer because the emails made it obvious that the Standard was interested not in her journalistic prowess but only about her personal life.

If the intent here was to ruin her reputation as a journalist and get her fired from the Post, it's an intent bound to meet with failure. Even if Marsden were to be Post pinkslipped, with her kind of talent she'd be picked up elsewhere, albeit even if it's south of the border.

When I asked Marsden how it felt to be attacked on a personal basis as a "convict" a "serial stalker" and a "fraud artist", she told me that she believed she could sue the Western Standard. "But a litigation victory would be a shallow one given that they likely can't afford to pay, so why give them any publicity?"

Marsden told me she had long ago learned to roll with the punches from industry giants, who had already been there.

Bernard Goldberg, number one bestselling author, eight-time Emmy winner and Marsden's friend related to her, a story about Mohammed ali. "Rachel, if Mohammed ali had bothered to answer all the people hurling insults at him as he entered the ring, he wouldn't have the energy for the real fight."

Meanwhile, looks like anne Coulter and her courageous Canadian "knock-off" won't be running from the journalism arena anytime soon.

The question: "How does a serial stalker, convict and fraud artist end up hottest young conservative pundit?" could be answered with another: With corrupt Canadian Liberals riding so high in the polls and the Conservative Party in freefall, why do conservative journalists continue to gorge on their own young?


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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