Case and point: Ezra Levant and Stephen Taylor frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of bad apples in Calgary’s police force. Calgary West Liberal Party of Canada candidate Jennifer Pollock tweeted a comment a few days ago about acknowledging problems with Calgary’s police force. The offending tweet is at the bottom of the linked image.

Stephen Taylor, the typical go-to man for the typical Tory spin, fed words into Pollock’s mouth like the good little Conservative he is. Note that Jennifer never called the police force racist.

Ezra Levant, over the last two days, has entered an anti-Liberal fit over Pollock’s tweet.

And now the Toronto Sun has carried the story. By the time this is posted (wrote this on Sunday) there’ll likely be more.

So here are the facts:

• Did Pollock call the Calgary police racist? No.
• Can the Tory tall tale telling twitterers spin a non-story into a good story? Yes.
• The federal team has already stated, entirely, un-equivocally, and completely without a single possibility for Tory spin-doctoring, that the federal Liberals do not believe Calgary’s police force is racist. Ms. Pollock agrees with this viewpoint.

This is why, folks, politicians are scared of talking about issues and with people. Words can be quickly twisted, fed, and blurred by partisan hacks (of all types). It’s just plain dangerous in a political world of rapid-response media and bloodthirsty partisans.

Pollock is a brave woman for tossing herself right into that terrible mix with her twitter feed–she actually talks about stuff, talks with people (not to), and interacts. She actively answers and contributes to conversations. She also does her own twittering, unlike Harper and friends who hire consultants and interns to do their work.

(As an aside, I have dealt with the police in Calgary on numerous occasions through my family’s business (countering petty-theft, rentals, etcetera).

At every instance the men and women I have dealt with have been honorable, forthright, and honest.

However, I have had the experience of witnessing disparaging and crude comments about aboriginal thieves and native drunks from a select few of these men and women. As with any and all organizations, there are those who hold negative views–and these few apples, who sometimes are bad apples when certain topics or crises arise, create a bad name for the 99.9% of others in the service. No organization is perfect but even so these men and women go out of their way daily to make us safe, fighting everything from forced-prostitution (vice squad) to terrorism (RCMP), in spite of our shared human failings. The police forces of every city should be heralded as paragons of virtue but this understanding should be tempered with an understanding that, at the end of the day, we are all human, with the accompanying frailties and weaknesses.)