Rex Murphy

Rex Murphy (born March, 1947, Carbonear, Newfoundland) is a well known CBC commentator and author of the 'Japes of Wrath' column in the Globe & Mail's Saturday edition. His style can be described as tell-it-like-it-is, deadpan sarcastic, poignant, truthful Newfoundlander synopsis of current events without the brogue. Murphy's commentaries are non-partisan despite previously running unsuccessfully for provincial office for the Progressive-Conservative and Liberal Party candidacies. He graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1968, and promptly went to the United Kingdom to study at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He did not, however, receive an Oxford degree.

Sourced

• "Not every article in every magazine or newspaper is meant to be a valentine card addressed to every reader's self-esteem."
  • On a complaint against an "Islamaphobic" article in a Canadian magazine 2008 (http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/rex_murphy/human_rights_gone_awry.html)

• "Stay away from philosophy, kids: it will ruin your mind."
  • In CBC News's "At Issue", Oct 1, 2009 edition.
  • On a French philosopher's defense of Roman Polanski, following the later's arrest in Switzerland and extradition to the US.

• There are ways to get worse publicity than Tom Wappel, the MP who wrote an 81–year–old, a veteran, legally blind and partially deaf, and told him, sneeringly, in effect to get lost– because the old man had not voted Liberal. [...] Here are some:
  • You could nail a five–day–old kitten to the floor and use it as a doorstop.
  • You could cut off the heat to an orphanage in winter, and insist the little ones dance for stale biscuits, and then not give them any.
  • Or you could take a chainsaw to the last redwood that was also the home of the last eagle and have it fall on the last panda. Outside of these cringing options, however Mr. Tom Wappel has more or less cornered the market in the Olympics of obnoxious behaviour.
  • "Tom Wappel," The National, CBC, May 10, 2001

Unsourced

• "What began as tomorrow’s politics today by last weekend resembled nothing so much as a Dr. Kevorkian assisted script for a roadrunner cartoon. The conservatives have been in fast forward free-fall. They’re not exactly crying “bring out your dead” but, last Sunday, note this, Kim Campbell took to mentioning Brian Mulroney, in public, and praising him."

-On the Progressive Conservatives campaign in 1993

• "The only difference between the Campbell campaign and the retreat from Moscow was that Napoleon wasn’t required on the way back to drop in on MuchMusic and conceptualize the fiasco with Ziggy."

-On the Progressive Conservatives campaign in 1993

• "Preston Manning is kind of a low-key combination of the man from glad, and John the Baptist. A lot of people, some in the media, but most in the back rooms, look down on Manning. They radiate a kind of contempt that this unprepossessing, tepid, evangelical hick is cluttering up their campaigns. They’re so far back in the woods they’ll have to come out to hunt."

-On the Reform campaign in 1993

• "Doug Henning’s ads were the campaigns’ gold. Dr. Henning is the vice-swami, or the guru, or is it the thigh master, who is in charge of the natural law party. Dr. Henning can make elephants disappear. As a political skill this is of limited practicality. We do not have many elephants in Canada, certainly not so many as to thrust elephant relocation, never mind outright displacement, to the top of Canada’s social agenda. Reflecting on this I’m inclined to the thought that Dr. Henning is campaigning on the wrong continent, conceivably on the wrong planet. His followers in the natural law party are a bunch of frustrated levitators. Am I being over critical? Probably. As the wise proverb observes, you should never make fun of a fellow human being, until you have bounced a mile in his buttocks."

-On the Natural Law campaign in 1993

External links

• Chrétien campaigns, Campbell crashes