There's no way in a hundred million years that the (1500?) staff at City Hall can match the intellectual capacity of the 877,000 people of the City of Ottawa.-Larry O'Brien on a telephone interview with BOB FM this morning (26 Nov 07 around 6:20am) on municipal budget consultations.
Wow.
Akin to the 2004-11-20 Dilbert where Alice is outwitted by PHM during a performance review ("inability to handle criticism ... and you argue with people much smarter than yourself.")
Evidently, in this first-past-the-post election system, his conscience is guided by a public opinion weathervane.
Personally, I think dissing your staff in order to flatter the electorate and gain public support for overriding staff recommendations is a cheap trick. I guess he also considers having the guts to say and do stupid things that nobody else would dare as "leadership."
My only consolation is that, as time goes on, the backward slides into conservativism, the reactionary shifts between left and right, are getting shorter-lived as people start realizing neither is the panacea for public ills. Part of me is beginning to look forward to the next quantum change that resets the public's frame of reference. Isn't 2012 the year the Mayans think this (particular iteration of the) world ends?
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