From Paul Wells’ Nov. 15 entry, taking a swing at a speech by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Lucienne Robillard:

I am not going to sugar-coat the formidable task facing anyone who straps on the hip waders to stroll through the river of jargon that follows. I do, however, seek the counsel of anyone who finds more wisdom in Robillard’s speech than I managed to find. And I suspect the rest of you will be grimly amused to spend a few minutes panning for nuggets in this Klondike of banality.

A lot of political commentary foams at the mouth over the fact that politicians dare to disagree with the commentator. But while Wells is never reluctant to share his views on policy (see, for example, his contrarian position on tuition fees), he generally saves his real venom for hypocrisy and vacuousness.

Hence the poetic jab “Klondike of banality”, and hence the worth of reading Wells. Agree or disagree with him on the issues, it isn’t hard to share his outrage over the content-free intellectual void that too often passes for politics in Canada and elsewhere. And to his credit, he often skewers his media colleagues with the same ferocity, which is only fair; it takes more than just politicians to create a political climate where ideas matter less than slogans, and branding matters more than policies.