A few quick Friday hits

*On this whole calling for a probe into Marc Patone’s appointment by the Conservatives as a CRTC. While it is smelly that he was (briefly) a Conservative candidate, and I’m certainly open to any chance to take shots at the Harper government, I’m not sure I’m supportive of the big fuss being made here. His Conservative ties aside, I’d argue he’s qualified. Critics are saying he doesn’t have the management experience. True, but he was a broadcast reporter on the ground for 27 years. Frankly, I think we’ve got lots of media management experience at the CRTC. Maybe it’s the journalist in me talking, but I think it’s a good thing to have one CRTC commissioner that has some boots on the ground, actual newsroom experience. That said, the appointments process does need fixing, and if the heritage committee wants to talk to him that’s fine.

*By all accounts, it sounds like Kristy Duncan is a fine candidate to succeed Roy Cullen in Etobicoke North. And I’m glad to see the party didn’t dilly-dally, but made the appointment immediately after Cullen made his retirement official. It eliminated any potential questions, and gets the news of the new candidate in the same news cycle, helping to damper the another Liberal leaving spin. One concern though: it looks like the local riding association wasn’t informed before the announcement. They should have been. Hopefully this won’t lead to any ruffled feathers and mar what seems like a solid appointment.

*The knock on the Liberals is that they always campaign from the left and govern from the right. Well, I’d say centre, but anyway, Lawrence Martin says it looks like the Conservatives do much the same: govern from the centre-right (or at least pretend to) but run from the right.

*IP points the way to an interesting article from The Guardian about the similarities between the Santos Campaign on The West Wing, and the Barrack Obama campaign, and how indeed Santos was actually modeled after Obama. Art imitating life, life imitating art. Hopefully the parallels don’t go too much further though. WW producers originally had Santos losing to Arnie Vinick; it wasn’t until the death of John Spencer, who played Santos’ VP candidate, Leo McGarry, that producers decided to give Santos the win. And hopefully no nuclear power plants in Arizona will melt down or anything.

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