Customer Reviews

No Holds Barred: My Life in Politics

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John Crosbie has brought much needed light on the unfashionable truth of Conservative power in Canada. From his days as Newfoundland Liberal MPP to his cabinet positions under former Prime Ministers Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, Crosbie describes the disturbing hypocrisies that are embedded in Canadian politics. He discusses a length the myth of Joey Smallwood, the duplicitous behaviour of Pierre Trudeau, the mean-spiritedness of a pro-Liberal media, and the orchestrated and groundless nature of the Airbus Scandal. He writes how easy it is to rise and fall in this country, depending on how the story is spun. "No Holds Barred" may not win any Liberal converts but it is absolutely essential if one is to know the Conservative point a view. Today's leaders may spoon feed an apathetic population with dogmatic ideas, but "No Holds Barred" manages to bring forward some welcomed facts to all those who dare call themselves educated.

John Crosbie is not a buffoon. John Crosbie is a hypocrit. John Crosbie is a braggart. John Crosbie thinks he's smarter than you. I started off reading this book with admitted skepticism. I don't particularly trust most politicians and I find most autobiographies self-serving and always one-sided. Early in, I was at least satisfied that Crosbie could at least acknowledge some mistakes and I was impressed with his knowledge and vocabulary. If ever you've gotten the impression from his infamous foot-in-mouth disease that he's uneducated or stupid- he's not. At least not in terms of politics. In terms of people he's (to borrow an Al Franken term) a "big, fat idiot." I seriously had to put the book down several times to calm down. His gaul to insult the Canadian public simply because they didn't always agree with his or his government's policies- too stupid, too sheepish to know what's good for them. Say that at election time, why didn't you? And then he uses the brains of the public to prove a point about Canadian art! To those worried about American culture and entertainment taking over and killing any such industry in Canada, Crosbie says that the Canadian public will decide if Canadian art is good, and if it is it will survive. If the Canadian public is so good at deciphering good art from bad art, why does he feel they aren't capable of distinguishing between good and bad government decisions? It was also so infuriating when he'd lambaste the Liberals for being corrupt yet he'd go on to declare that any corruption on part of the PCs was a necessary evil. Hypocrit. Still, he made me think, analyze, criticize and question history as I knew it. Not many other books have made me do that lately, and so, it wasn't a waste of a read.