Resisting the pull of cynicism since 1969.

Monday, December 04, 2006

What is with our party leaders and their asses?

When I heard about Layton's Question Period slip of the tongue today--described rather succinctly over at CBC online as "The House of Commons broke into cheers and laughter Monday after NDP Leader Jack Layton dropped the first letter from the word gas"--I had to laugh and laugh. I admit it, I've got exactly the juvenile sort of humour that finds this sort of thing freaking hilarious.

What made it all the funnier, though, is the fact that during the 2006 election, Harper had his own 'ass' slip. It went largely unnoticed other than in the (now sadly defunct) CTV election blog because so much else was going on at the time, but the text of the post has been preserved over here:

The howler of the campaign so far came tonight in St. Catharines where more than 1,200 people (that's right -- 1,200 in St. Catharines!) heard Harper lead off a section of his standard stump speech with this line ...

"As you listen to the misquotes and misinformation that will spew out of Mr. Martin's office and out of his ass ..."

Or at least that's what everyone heard. It brought the house down. Even Harper's wife Laureen, standing on stage beside him, started giggling.

Now if you listen closely to the tape, he actually said:

"As you listen to the misquotes and misinformation that will spew out of Mr. Martin's offce and out of his ads."

He seemed, though, to drop the 'd' in "ads" and it came out "ats."

Harper himself didn't seem to realize what he almost said and after a brief pause where he seemed a little confused at the reaction the line got, continued on hammering away at Paul Martin -- and his ads.
The post came complete with an .mp3, which seems to have disappeared along with the post, but your trusty neighbourhood idealistic pragmatist saved a copy and has put it up for download here. It's highly recommended for the crowd reaction alone!

5 comments:

skdadl said...

Thanks for that good giggle, IP.

West End Bob said...

When I read the CBC report on the "slip" I wondered which of our intrepid bloggers would comment first . . . You go, IP, and thanks for the audio of harper's faux pas . . . . It does appear that politicians have an ass-obsession, doesn't it? Wonder what this correlation is in the sphere of the Universe, hmmm????

Idealistic Pragmatist said...

west end bound,

I know! First Rae/Ignatieff slash fan fiction and now this! What is this world coming to? ;-)

Kevin,

Oh, come on, you can't tell me you don't look back on that now and laugh!

Ask me about the time I meant to say "look, the birds!" in German and accidentally said "look, they're screwing!" *grin*

Anonymous said...

Wow... that almost makes me feel the tiniest bit of pity for Harper. Not the slip, but the fact that he didn't notice it.

And I would have to say that the floppy disc wins over the, um, 'intimate' birds, only because of the audience factor. If you were teaching a zoology class, however, then it would be a toss up. ;)

Anonymous said...

I didn't get some of the pundits reaction either.....my buddy and I were in the work van when we heard and and i damn near had to pull over for the tears in my eyes. Parliament needs more moments like this in my opinion. It might make for a little less-dry viewing....