There’s no need to dwell at length on the thick-witted tweeting of a man named Doug Elniski who until now has been a mute and anonymous Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Calder, but who this week was thrust into public view because of several monumentally stupid postings on Twitter, and on his blog.
Elniski, who’s married with three grown daughters, apparently considers himself qualified to counsel young girls and so he quotes from a speech he delivers at junior high graduations.
Listen up, girls: “Men are attracted to smiles, so smile and don’t give me that ‘treated equal’ stuff, if you want equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks.”
And: “Ladies, always smile when you walk into a room because there is nothing a man wants less than a woman scowling because he thinks he is going to get sh– for something and has no idea what.”
And then, venturing further afield with a Twitter tweet: “Bikini car wash 82 129 Ave girls look cold (..)”
So Elniski is evidently a bit of a voyeur – “The girls are gorgeous, not grown up but certainly getting there” – as well as a crude stumblebum of a misogonyst and for good measure not exactly up to speed on English composition.
Premier Ed Stelmach, whose misfortune it is to have Elniski in his caucus, called the man in for a stern lecture about watching one’s tweets on Twitter and for goodness sake don’t you be going on about leering at bikini car wash girls, whereupon Elniski babbled away to the media about how yes indeed, he screwed up and then, when asked directly about his rant on “don’t give me that ‘treated equal’ stuff,” screwed up anew.
“Public life is a real learning experience, and the biggest thing you learn when you’re in public life, first off, is that you are held to a higher level of expectation than you would be if you weren’t in public office. That particular comment was a comment that would probably have been okay if someone was not in public office, but for someone who was in public office was not appropriate.”
Oh, good. It’s fine for men, if not holding elected office, to fling sexually suggestive comments into the Twittersphere, demean women, and worst of all stray into what for me is questionable territory. Girls are “babies with pretty satin dresses, bouffant hairdo’s (sic) trying to walk in high heels.”
Enough said and quoted about this dismal clown. Stelmach should at once have fired Elniski’s can out of caucus, but didn’t of course, which will lead me next to some thoughts about the general state of governance in Alberta. I’ll post tomorrow.