At what point does he become a partisan, I wonder?

Over the past year or so, Mark and I have taken increasing notice of Michael Byers' ill-considered pronouncements on the Afghan mission, and on the media's continued insistence upon ignoring his political ties to the NDP:

Here's what ticks me off about all this: although the good Dr. Byers has been interviewed and quoted at length in the media over his opposition to the detainee transfer agreement, not a single story that I can find puts his words into context for the average Canadian news consumer.

According to the Canadian news media, Michael Byers is nothing more than a "human rights activist," a "political science professor," and an expert on international law. Somehow or other, on a file so politically charged that it has dominated the news columns and airwaves for weeks, so politically dangerous that it threatens to sack the Minister of National Defence, it has been deemed irrelevant by the Canadian journalistic establishment that one of the key instigators of this drama is a declared partisan for one of the parties in opposition to our effort in Afghanistan.

Well, the professor has just decided to throw his hat into the political ring and will be trying to win a nomination in the federal riding of Vancouver Centre for...wait for it...the NDP!

I’ve decided to run because of my growing concerns about the lack of Canadian leadership on critical issues such as climate change, the war in Afghanistan, health care, housing and human rights.

I’ve studied the various federal party policies on climate change. The NDP policy makes the most sense. And it respects individual citizens. The Liberals want to force Canadians to change their behaviour through taxes; the NDP wants to help Canadians to change with solutions.

We need real political leadership, with bold and effective public policy, and Jack Layton is the only one in Canada offering that.

So, I guess that puts our pet peeve to rest - no more will the media sterilize his opinion with the pretence of objectivity...

...oops:

But determining the nature of the countries' joint continental shelf is a step toward being able to resolve those issues by providing more data, and thus more opportunities for both sides to compromise, said University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers, who specializes in global politics and international law. [Babbler's emphasis]

I assume that "University of British Columbia professor and aspiring federal NDP candidate professor Michael Byers, who specializes in global politics and international law" would have exceeded the Globe & Mail's ink budget for this story.

Even if the ethical implications of such an omission of critical information don't register for the press, self-interest should: the first thing that goes through a reader's mind when they know about something like this is "if they're not telling me about this, what else aren't they telling me about?"

All of us here at The Torch did that enough times on military matters to devote much of this blog to it.

Watch and shoot, folks.