Interesting to see Jack being kicked around a little, at least online.
I’m not sure who’s responsible for the video, but this is from the blurb on YouTube:
Jack Layton has fallen down a credibility hole of his own digging. Ever the humble communicator, he is crediting his father for helping to design wind turbines and helping to come up with the idea that we could mobilize wind power and giving him credit for the origins of windpower on the Gaspé Peninsula.
But that is only the beginning. He goes on to bring his brother Rob into the picture and continues to espouse his families role in creating what he guesses was in some ways, the first hybrid car.
The problem is, as the Toronto Star reports, when Jacks sister Nancy was asked about this part of her families [sic] history after climbing on the Layton campaign bus, she smiled and said the family invention was news to her.
I wonder whether this apparent tall-tale will become a running joke as was the case with Al Gore back in 2000, especially as the Conservatives are now going to be directing more of their attacks at both the NDP and the Greens.
Red Tory v.3.0.3 
Whooee! Did I ever tell you about when my ol’ Mum invented soup?
JB
Cool!
This is entirely too funny.
A hybrid, not “the” hybrid car 😉
Gore never claimed to have “invented” the Internet either, but that certainly didn’t stop the lie from being widely circulated at the time and even for a good while after the 2000 election.
Gee, Jack never talks about the fact that his dad, who was a Conservative and in the Mulroney government – voted against funding for the homeless and assistance in affordable housing. Hmmm….must have slipped his mind.
Hey, my dad made my mother what she is today….a mother.
Wow Liberals must be feeling desperate if you are clinging to this Cherniak tripe. Even he admits that it is a scummy piece to try and grab 10% of the vote. The one problem is that in this video jack comes across as a proud and loving son and brother who has a family history of caring about the environment.
And regarding the nasty comment about his father’s votes. Sometimes our parents (or our children) do things that disappoint us or that we don’t agree with. Obviously Jack has a different world view politically than his father. He acknowledges it but it doesn’t mean he should be less proud of the things that brought he and his father together.
I find you and this kind of attack really rather pathetic.
I didn’t post it as an attack and haven’t seen whatever Cherniak is doing.
To be honest, I just found it funny and wondered if it would be used to attack Jack’s credibility.
The next post will speak to that more directly in a substantive way.
Red: i have a lot of respect for you. I read your blog regularly and sometimes you and I have had some back and forth chats (sometimes I post as jaybird but there are so many jays posting i don’t always stick to it).
I get that this has been a difficult election for liberals thus far, and I know that these vids are likely to pick up and some ndper will likely produce something about Dion. Frankly it is less the video that bothers me, because I don’t think non-partisan Canadians are likely to read it the way partisans will (Jack wasn’t making an I statement like the Al Gore one) but that comment from RuralSandi I found offensive. Families should be off limits unless there is a compelling reason and I don’t think this comes near qualifying.
The accuracy or fairness of the interpretation the video puts on Jack’s comments aside, while I agree with you on family being offside, isn’t Jack bringing his family into it himself by the long, meandering story about his father?
I would agree that families should be off limits, but then there’s a bit of a double-standard involved there when politicians use them for their own advantage. Can’t have it both ways and all that…
But generally speaking, it’s not somewhere I like to go.
Yes it was an anecdote about a family project that his brother and father engaged in. Lots of fathers and sons build kit cars and there is an entire movement of folk on the internet teaching each other how to convert diesel cars to biofuel and regular cars to electric cars. That is the story and what he describes is A type of hybrid.
In terms of the wind generation story. He talks about a mcgill project to develop a new kind of windmill/wind turbine. Again something that happens on a farely frequent basis (you know the solar car competition or the engineers that build bridges out of toothpicks and test their tensile strength).
The spin is over the top for the words and tenor of the story being told but I guess that is what desperation does to you. sheesh.
but that comment from RuralSandi I found offensive. Families should be off limits unless there is a compelling reason and I don’t think this comes near qualifying.
…….geez, I’m being scolded here…Jack’s dad was in politics and his record is in the books. If he was a private citizen, okay, but he was a known politician.
Jack doesn’t want his family talked about, he shouldn’t bring them up in the campaign.
Lighten up – too sensitive.
By the way folks, if you don’t know already – Rick Mercer is back….he’s blogging. His rant is in the Globe and Mail – it’s the same as what’s on his blog.
ruralsandi – yup your being scolded its deserved
Ah politics… such fun, huh?
hey red- didn’t you post something about abandoning this blog? did i get that wrong? when i saw the post I was very disappointed – now I am not 😉
Yeah, I had one of those little hissy fits where I wanted to pack it in for a while, but then I had second-thoughts about it. As usual…
I’ll probably be spending less time on it as I’ve got a lot of other stuff on the go right now, but with the election heating up it’s hard to not throw my two cents in now and again.
jc….get over yourself.
This is pathetic.
Looks like the death throes of the Liberal Party.
Okay, let’s not talk about Layton’s family. Let’s talk about the fact he got into a squabble with a sound crew at the CNE for not using a unionized crew.
The spin is over the top for the words and tenor of the story being told but I guess that is what desperation does to you. sheesh.
You know, I felt the same way when rabble was swarming on Ben Chin. (For those of you not in the know, here’s a recap (nice that the blogger who first advanced them took them down… anyway, here’s Ben’s response to them).
All the Dippers suffer either from “delusional self-righteousness” or are simply energised by contrarianism. But then, that’s nothing new. That’s their essence.
I witnessed it firsthand when Bob Rae came to power in Ontario. These people are happiest when they’re in a position to criticise. But try to get them to do anything, and their unbounded laziness comes to the fore.