Ottawa

‘Hook, line and sinker’

David Pugliese counters yesterday’s “news.”

The Russians have been doing such sorties for the last year and a half. In August 2007 Russian President Putin announced to the world that such sorties would begin again. “Starting in 1992, the Russian Federation unilaterally suspended strategic aviation flights to remote areas,” Putin said at the time. “Regrettably, other nations haven’t followed our example. That has created certain problems for Russia’s security.”

Yesterday’s incident prompted some amusement at NDHQ about how gullible some in  the news media can be and how easily some journalists swallowed the government’s bait hook, line and sinker.

However, that laughter was somewhat tempered by mid-afternoon when TV newscasts started linking the Arctic sovereignty issue and the Russian sortie. NDHQ types started getting worried that journalists would later start asking about what was happening with the Arctic training base, the Arctic patrol ships and the new icebreaker that were promised by the Harper government. The answer to what’s happening with those projects is “very little,” said one DND insider.

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