A dust up between political bloggers and anti semitic comments has resulted in the New Democratic Party leadership stepping in.

Jason Cherniak, who was a blog co-chair for Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s campaign, has a copy of a letter written by NDP President Anne McGrath to Ed Morgan of The Canadian Jewish Congress, and cc’d to Gerry Weinstein, President of B’Nai Brith Canada.

Copy of McGrath letter (.pdf)

I am writing in regards to some highly offensive comments that appear on a blog operated by Robert McClelland. The statements allegedly made by Mr. McClelland are repugnant and in no way reflect the views of our Party.

I want to insure you that The New Democratic Party of Canada, it’s provincial sections and local riding associations are not affiliated with Mr. McClelland or his independently operated blogroll, the “Blogging Dippers.”

The NDP is undertaking the development of a new blog roll that better reflects the views and needs of New Democrats in the blogosphere.

This will be the first blog roll officially endorsed by a political party. Given blogging tends to be self corrective, I’m not sure this is a good thing. 

(New Democrats are nicknamed Dippers) The Blogging Dippers aggregator (blog roll) is here.

The problem began with anti-semitic comments under this March 2 post at My Blahg. Cherniak voices his concerns in this post at his blog, Cherniak on Politics.

Robert McClelland has responded to the decision of the NDP at My Blahg.

I am not a member of the NDP nor do I speak for them.

My one and only contact with an NDP MP throughout my entire life–all 42 years of it–was when I emailed some information on an issue to NDP MP Pat Martin and he or one of his staff replied only to say thank you.

I am not the head Dipper or ringleader nor do I speak for the other members of the Blogging Dippers as some sleazy political opportunists and lazy journalists seem to think. I am merely the administrator of the website and a member of this loose association that has no official ties to the NDP.

Jack Layton and the NDP have even less influence over me and the Blogging Dippers website than you imbecilic Libfloggers do.

Once again just to make it clear to all the Libfloggers out there who are creating an alternate universe: there is no connection between me and the NDP nor are there any connections between the Blogging Dippers website and the NDP.

So your howling for my resignation and shrieking for any ties to be severed will only fall on deaf ears because there is nothing for me to resign from nor are there any ties to sever.

Update: Just to drive the point home even further about how unconnected I am to the NDP. The party neither contacted me to hear my side of the story nor did they even have the decency to inform me of their condemnation of my comment. You can’t be any further out of the loop than that.

By the way, this is also why I will never join a political party. They have no respect for those who do.

Update II: If he’s reading this, I’d like to ask Professor Ed Morgan of the CJC when the fuck is his organization going to start defending their allies, who fight shoulder to shoulder with them against anti-semitism, from the many false accusationsthat they themselves are anti-semites? When they come for us Prof. Morgan, why do Jews such as yourself remain silent?

Response from NDP leader Jack Layton’s office at Quito.

(Liberal bloggers are nicknamed libbloggers not libfloggers)
There is also a Canadian pundit aggregator called Progressive blogs (cross party pundit blogs with about 350 blogs aggregated)

via: Bourque Newswatch