What the country really needs: A Canadian Correspondents’ Dinner

Ah, the annual correspondents’ dinner. How I would love to one day attend. Each year we hear the awkward details and try to imagine what it must have been like. The president cracks jokes at his own expense and rubs shoulders with some of his fiercest critics: the media. But they share a meal and at the end of the evening, everyone is left with a warm fuzzy feeling inside (ok, several cocktails help being on this feeling… but who cares how we get there, as long as we get there).
So why doesn’t Canada have one of these babies? I think we could really use an event like the correspondents’ dinner in Ottawa. I think the city — nation, even — would be a better place for it.
Now I know this will never happen, as long as Stephen Harper is at 24 Sussex. After all, he and his administration has shut more doors to reporters than any other PM’s office that any reporter on the hill can remember.
Still, I think it would do wonders for his public image. Right now the PM is more like an angry dad than a confident leader of a democratic country. He’s grouchy and yells all the time, and when someone asks a tough question (dad, can I have $20 to go to the movies?) he disappears. (go ask your mother? Who’s that? Equally PMS-y John Baird? Or is mum the far more feminine but still confusing and rife with mixed messages Stéphane Dion?).
How would Stephen act in a correspondents’ dinner-like setting? It would be interesting. He’s got a great team of speech writers so I’m sure they could work out an agreeable routine. This year President Bush cracked a good one about the dinner from the year before, when his approval rating was at 30% and his vice president had just shot someone. Those we the good old days, he quipped.
Harper wouldn’t be able to do that, because if he would acknowledge that he’s been in office for over a year, he’d have to stop referring to his team as “Canada’s new government” (scroll down to see my previous rant on the overuse of that phrase) and might realize that after more than a year’s time in office, he really can’t keep blaming the Liberals for everything.
Still, I think a Canadian correspondents’ dinner would be a good move for Harper. And if he doesn’t surprise me and start throwing a good party, maybe the next administration will. Sadly, I’m not going to hold my breath or bet on it. I think our country’s political leaders are so paranoid and stale, it just won’t happen. Unless the country goes to hell and Belinda Stronach somehow winds up PM. Lord knows she loves the spotlight, and sure can throw a party.