Ontario Conservative leader John Tory is getting slammed in media and even worse in the political blogosphere since Wednesday.

People attempting to defend his remarks to a radio reporter may in reality be attempting to defend his personal belief as opposed to his platform on educational funding changes. Tory has an arts degree and a law degree, and he jumped in where angels fear to tread. I think few of us have ever seen a politician go down so fast. And the election campaign for Ontario hasn’t officially kicked off yet. CTV:

The Conservatives are promising to give private religious schools $400 million if they opt into the public system, teach the provincial curriculum, hire accredited teachers and administer standardized tests, Tory said.

But that doesn’t mean Christian schools couldn’t teach creationism on top of the existing provincial curriculum, he said after touring a 100-year-old Jewish school in a Toronto suburb.

“It’s still called the theory of evolution,” Tory said. “They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs.”

*Catholics don’t hold to creationism and certainly don’t teach it in science class. A Catholic teacher or student can tell me if they teach it in religion class given Pope John Paul II weighed in on teaching evolution years ago. There have been thousands of creationist beliefs, do Catholics students study all of them in religion class? Pope Benedict has not changed policy.

There are two good reads on this, one from Colby Cosh and another excellent one from James Bow over at Bow. James Bow.
Neither writer slams John Tory the person, or people that are on the other side of the political isle. I can’t mock the man, it was so politically harmful, and such a rare political self-immolation I’ve not weighed in. The voters in his riding will make their own decisions, Tory is running against the provincial education minister in Don Valley West who does did have a public statement on the issue for voters.

Cosh:

Tory had better damage-control choices available, if only he were a man of more agile wit. Instead of having a humiliating “clarification” issued on his behalf, he might have turned the tables on the Liberals, asking them if they think the creation stories of the Jews, the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Iroquois are really just so much rubbish that need to be confined to a ghetto of “unscientificness” in the schools. If you’re going to be a cultural relativist, you might as well go all the way.

He’d still lose the election, of course, but he could at least have returned the ball into the Liberals’ court on this issue, where it belongs.

James Bow:

I like John Tory. I like him personally, and I like his instincts as a politician, but I think the very instincts that made him such a compelling candidate for mayor of Toronto may be failing him here. John is an affable man, a listener, one who strives to build consensus from a diversity of interests. His mayoralty campaign was remarkable both for the breadth of his support, and his willingness to think outside the box. I liked this because he tried to bring together individuals and groups who were natural enemies on the political stage, and unite them towards a common goal.

That’s my kind of politics. That’s why I firmly believe we need more John Tories in all levels of government. People like McGuinty and Harper can champion large groups or polarize the electorate in order to gain votes; that makes them mere politicians. But to take the disparate groups and convince them to set aside their differences and work towards a common goal — that’s a leader.

But as Tory is finding out, being a leader is harder than being a politician, and building a big tent to cover Ontario requires far more canvas than building one to cover Toronto. Tory has again tried to cobble together a coalition of diverse interests, some of whom are so disparate as to be controversial. Witness Warren Kinsella’s earlier approach of trying to hammer John Tory through the Conservative candidate for Lanark, former radical rural activist Randy Hillier. The message from Warren: how can Tory pull together a party that plays to the interests of rural radicals like Hiller while still being relevant to the voters of Toronto?

I give Tory every credit in the world for trying his best, here, but it seems elements of his big tent are not giving up their traditional enmities, especially over the controversial issue of public funding for faith-based schools. John Tory is already seen as a mushy middle (gasp!) pro-choice candidate that strident social conservatives refuse to vote for. Now, in trying to assuage his remaining social conservative base from the wedge that McGuinty is hammering into the platform, he seems to have alienated his secular friends.

Joh Tory’s official site The Ontario PC Party
BigCityLib looks at Ontario Social Conservatives concerns with Tory’s plan to allow public funding for religious schools.

As bad a few days as John Tory has faced, George W. Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in Sydney Australia at the APEC summit that just got worse when he met with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

I wonder how the CTV Mulroney interview is going to go. I may watch it, I doubt I’ll be reading the book, I’ve read a few released sections. In what TV interview brief promos I saw, Mulroney came across as a man letting out some 30 year old anger at opponents. CTV will run a candid two hour interview with the former PM Sunday 7 pm.