Monday, September 22, 2008

Who Will Survive The Cache?

So, the NDP is losing candidates to their pot-laced past; the CBC is mounting insider hatchet jobs with Liberal operatives against Ritz; BCL has demolished another CPC candidate; Garth Turner is establishing a deathwatch on his opponent. The blogosphere seems to really be doing it's long-awaited magic this time around.

This endless loop of digging through Google cache, finding the bad stuff and killing off the candidate (sorry Garth, not literally) is all very well - perhaps in some cases a valuable contribution. But what will happen in 10 or 15 years time, when virtually everyone will have something online that they'd rather hadn't happened? Where will you find anyone who hasn't posted an angry thought they'd like to take back, or some ill-advised pictures from a drunken university party? Nearly everyone under 25 is on Facebook and most of them will mess up at some point in their lives.

If Canadians and their MSM continue to be as thin-skinned and twitchy about these kinds of things, it's hard to imagine how anyone of any stripe will be electable in the future.