Smear merchants at Globe and Mail got their embarrassing comeuppance when Peter MacKay’s wife took the high road and easily schooled arrogant writer Leah McLaren, who wrote “An open letter to Peter MacKay’s wife,” with a classy rebuke, “An open letter to Leah McLaren”.
The Globe and Mail, through Leah McLaren, embarked on a gratuitous, totally uncalled-for personal attack on the wife of politician – Peter MacKay’s wife Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay – who loves her husband and her motherhood role – very much. The Globe and Mail actually printed that tripe – a terrible journalistic decision.
Which leads us to question what is wrong with Leah McLaren and the Globe and Mail. Was this done on a dare during a drunken party with progressive strategists from the Liberal Party and the you’ve got to be kidding party at G&M editorial offices? Are they all high on something over there? Or are they just stupid?
The smackdown was embarrassing for the Globe and Mail, because it is so obviously well deserved. But even in the absence of the beautiful smackdown, McLaren’s “open letter” to Mrs. MacKay is itself an embarrassment. For example:
Dear Nazanin,
How are you, my dear?
…I guess you saw the Mother and Father’s Day e-mails, hmm? The ones that came on the heels of his (very incorrect) comments about how not enough women were applying to be judges. I could be totally off the mark here, but reading between the lines it seems pretty clear whose job it is in your house to change diapers, make lunches, take care of aging parents and think about dinner. Luckily you can leave all the “guiding, teaching” and “moulding” of your son to your husband – which must be a relief, because who feels like building character after a long day baking cookies?
She lost me at “my dear.” But yeah, you’re totally “off the mark,” Leah, “my dear,” in a dozen different ways (not including your terrible, snotty writing). Leah McLaren also refers to Nazanin’ husband, 
Peter MacKay, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, as Nazanin’s “baby daddy.” (As one commenter wrote, “you lost me at ‘baby daddy’.”)
But what fresh hell is this, where the media presumes to personally, publically, engage the wife of a politician in an attack on her husband? Moreover, in a manner which is so superior and snobby and elitist? Furthermore, doing so when the basis of the attack is nothing but another construct of left-wing media rumor and hearsay and just pure BS? Again I have to ask – are they stupid? Have they simply given up on professional journalism?
Here are some good lines from Mrs. MacKay, who is riding the high road all the way:
…I believe the fact that he [Peter MacKay] was raised by a single mother (an active feminist for 50 years) and two caring grandmothers, and has three dynamic sisters (all working mothers) to whom he is very close, gives him an important perspective and strong respect for our gender.
Leah, were you aware that his closest working partners in his office are predominantly women, including the chief of staff, the director of communications, the press secretary and all his constituency assistants and regional directors?
It is interesting to note that the Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards that everyone is getting so worked up over were drafted by female Department of Justice staffers and approved and released by the respected women I’ve listed above.
… It was and is fully my decision to put my career on hold, to be a full-time mother, and I honestly believe there is no more important job in the world. I am blessed to have the opportunity to nurture my child in mind, body and soul. Peter supports me entirely in my choice. When I decide to return full-time to my chosen profession, he will support me in that endeavour as well.
…Leah, with regards to your comment on dads “rolling up their sleeves,” Peter has been incredibly supportive since our marriage and the birth of our son. Even after often putting in 16-hour workdays as the main income earner in our household, he does all the sewing (his grandfather taught him), mows the lawn and takes out the garbage and recycling. He does most of the laundry and heavy cleaning in our house. We happily share housework and cooking. We both change diapers, bathe Kian, dress him, play with him and love him. Cameras are not rolling when Peter reads to Kian before bed, or does the grocery shopping, picks up medicine and attends doctor’s appointments…
The Globe and Mail and its Leah McLaren will pretend that this controversy is good for them because… publicity, or something; but that is not the case. This is terrible for them and it further debases Canada’s already extremely tarnished liberal media – an institution which has already lost almost all its credibility; and this makes it far, far worse. It’s a real failure on their part.
A glance at the reader comments on each article reveals this in spades: Mrs. MacKay’s reader comments are all laudatory and praising, while some of the comments on MacLaren’s attack piece are like this one (others do join in on the attack on MacKay, as you’d expect, with the Globe and Mail having just emboldened their readers to lower themselves to their level):
Ariel Milano 1 day ago
Somehow, Leah, my dear, this is super-offensive. Peter MacKay should be taking his own heat.
Giving condescending advice — in public , no less — to an extremely intelligent woman who has an international reputation in human rights activism, and who is also a documentary film-maker, musician, and pilot, just because she happens to be his wife and to have a young son, identifies you as a bully, and misguided as to how she could possibly need your help.
Leah McLaren isn’t the only “bully,” here. This is the liberal media using its bully pulpit in all the wrong ways. This is a terrible editorial decision by the Globe and Mail. An even worse public exposure of the liberal-left’s arrogance.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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