God save our gracious whatchamacallit

So Wente doesn't like Adrienne Clarkson. What else is new?

Instead of the colourless, virtually unknown governors-general Canada had had for a quarter century, we got someone who actually behaved like a head of state. But, of course, Clarkson was a left-winger (she even worked for the CBC, the Commie Broadcasting Corporation itself!) and even worse, a nonwhite. Wente thus has nothing but snark for her.

She deliberately twists Clarkson's words - saying the former governor-general "compares herself to Tolstoy", when it is clear from Wente's own quotes that Clarkson was using Tolstoy as an analogy, not claiming to match Tolstoy's prowess as a writer.

More ugly is the implication that Clarkson disapproves of her successor, Michaëlle Jean. How does Wente know this? Merely because Clarkson says her own appointment was painstakingly vetted by the prime minister's office. That "implies", Wente writes, that Clarkson believes Jean was not similarly vetted, so must be unqualified.

It means nothing of the sort, of course. It means Wente thinks Jean is unqualified. This is what Freudians call "projection". Wente would admittedly not be alone in this opinion, but she lacks the intellectual courage to come out and say so.

It would be nice if Wente were to write a column which actually had a point, not a motley collection of snide remarks. (It would be even better if she stopped writing altogether, but we can't have everything.)