CBC television "news" has, since the outbreak of the Occupy movement, (spreading wildly in the U.S., and now in Canada too) tried by turns to ridicule, belittle, and dismiss the hundreds of thousands taking part.

 

From flagship program, The National, to lesser lights like Mark Kelley, whose "disconnect" segment on his Connect with Mark Kelley program took sarcasm masquerading as news to new heights, the message from Canada's state broadcaster is easy to discern.

 

Following in line Thursday, October 5th was faux journalist Kevin T. O'Leary of the Lang O'Leary Exchange, who thought an "interview" with multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning real life journalist, Chris Hedges would be a grand opportunity to promote his Dragon's Den persona, a not even thinly disguised Simon Cowell impersonation.

 

Attacking his guest's views of New York City's Occupy Wall Street demonstration, currently entering its fourth week, O'Leary offered Hedges sounded to him like a "left-wing nutbar."

 

Hedges' measured response compared the program to Fox News, and bemoaned its failure to cite Canadian intellectual, John Ralston Saul, whose work Hedges says provides lucid explanation of the current economic and social crises.

 

Coming in concert with the ever ebullient Don Cherry's, a former associate of O'Leary, on-air slander of former NHL players calling for a reevaluation of rules in light of endemic head injuries in professional hockey as drug and booze addicted, it makes one wonder what has become of the once venerable Corporation.

 

 

Here's the Hedges - O'Leary exchange.