Sunday, September 23, 2007

Landolt gets interviews -- why?

One of the weirdest phenomena to come out of the Conservative party's hostile takeover of our government 18 months ago is the ascendancy of the bigoted misogynist crackpot Gwen Landolt and her collection of like-minded bigots, raving lunatics and jesus camp hatebots known as REALwomen. Two years ago, this bag of mixed nuts couldn't catch a cold, let alone an interview with anything resembling Real Media. The only times I can remember reading about them in the actual news media (sorry, "lifeshite" doesn't count) were a couple of "odd news" articles when they first started up ("Hahahaha, look at these loony-toons!") and a righteous thrashing by Heather Mallick last year.

Fast forward to last week, after the funding cuts to NAWL. The CBC wants to interview someone on "The Current" about it, so who do they call? Heritage Minister Josee Verner, Pamela Cross from NAWL, and... Landolt? Why? Adding a high-calibre nitwit like Landolt to the interview turns a serious Q&A session about a grim situation into a freak show. More disturbingly, it lends undeserved credibility to someone who should rightfully be delivering her incoherent diatribes from an orange crate on a street corner. Landolt's on the record as not only a self-loathing misogynist (see her spittle-flecked rant against the Rape Shield Law), but an extremist homophobe (see her foaming-at-the-mouth "Apology to the World For Gay Marriage"). Even the FCP accused her of scare mongering in her screeds against MMP (which she's not down with for some reason, even though it can only help the FCP).

Anyway, the woman is clearly unhinged -- there's no reason to include her in an interview about anything other than mental illness, and even then only as "Exhibit A". After giving her a platform on the Current last week, CBC has earned my wrath: tomorrow they'll be feeling it too. And maybe the day after and the day after that, until she's persona non grata on the interview circuit. I've heard enough.

(Edited to delete broken linkie)