PING!
Posted on 09/28/2006 11:18:13 AM PDT by GMMAC
Victim stance self-serving
Ottawa Sun
September, 28, 2006
By SUSAN SHERRING
Just what world is Belinda Stronach living in? Or perhaps more importantly, what world does she want to live in?
The Tory-turned-Liberal MP believes it's still a man's world.
That's her assessment after the member of parliament was named in divorce papers filed by former Toronto Maple Leaf Tie Domi's estranged wife Leanne.
In a society that craves salacious gossip, the story of the alleged affair quickly became front page news this week.
No surprise there.
Domi's wife alleges her husband flaunted the alleged relationship with Stronach, ignoring his family while partying it up with the likes of Brad Pitt and Stronach.
The dirty details of the allegations continue.
And Domi's wife doesn't pretend to hide her pain.
"It was humiliating to me and I cried when I heard about it ... I had been made into a fool," reads Leanne's statement filed in court.
Stronach's response?
Well, Belinda doesn't want to talk about it.
Thank you. Good thinking.
A family has been torn apart, there are children involved here, hearts have been broken, and anything Stronach says will just help to keep the story alive.
Keeping your mouth shut is the thing to do -- whatever your role may or may not be.
But then, having said she wasn't going to talk, she starts yapping.
Why?
Seems poor little Belinda thinks she's being picked on because she's a woman.
Please.
"I'd like to say in a country like Canada there isn't, but I do believe there is a double standard and it's very unfortunate. It's very unfortunate for other women who want to seek public office in this country," she said in an interview with CTV Newsnet.
Is this the first time Stronach has noticed the double standard? Has life been so easy for her that she hasn't realized women around her still struggle to reach the upper echelons of business despite all their hard work?
Of course there's a double standard for women in politics. Just ask the likes of former Liberal cabinet minister Sheila Copps who couldn't open her mouth without some of her male colleagues commenting on the tone of her voice.
Just ask every woman who would like to run for office, but can't afford to, or can't leave her family to live in Ottawa, or has worked tirelessly for her party only to find the male bastion ensuring they can't secure the nomination.
Probably not issues Stronach has ever had to deal with.
(Speaking of double standards, we suspect if she's been subjected to one, it's that life has been far easier for her being an attractive and rich blonde. Doors have been opened for her that others can barely get close enough to knock on.)
Does any thinking, reasoned person out there really believe the media attention being heaped on Stronach is going to deter even one woman from entering politics?
And surely no one can really think the attention she's receiving is because she's a woman. Does she know nothing about the media?
There are plenty of reasons why women don't run for politics, but the risk of being named publicly as the Other Woman just isn't one of them.
Is Stronach the victim of a double standard?
What a ridiculous and self-serving accusation.
And given the pain being felt by Leanne Domi and her children, whining that you're being picked on because you're a woman is so self-centred that the women's movement could stall for yet another 100 years.
Small wonder that women are having trouble getting ahead when this is the plop coming out of one of the country's best-known female politicians.
It's mind-boggling, to say the least, to think that of all the important issues facing women today, issues that we are still grappling with, that a woman in public office, a woman who is chair of the Liberal women's caucus, would sink so low as to minimize the real issues many less-advantaged women face every day and whine that she's a victim here.
Just how representative Stronach is of women today is certainly questionable.
While other single mothers struggle to afford to buy their child a new pair of shoes, or put food on the table, her choices are a little less stressful.
Prada or Gucci?
..... 2nd article .....
Many faces of Belinda and Tie
A display of standards -- all double
Toronto Sun
September, 28, 2006
By MICHELE MANDEL
Boo hoo, Belinda - forgive us if we can't quite reach our Hermes hanky.
The fetching Liberal MP for Newmarket-Aurora has decided to trot out the victim card, complaining that all the furor over her dalliance with a (then) married Tie Domi is nothing more than a sexist double standard.
"I'd really like to say in a country like Canada that there isn't, but I do believe there is a double standard," Stronach said in a CTV interview this week, breaking her silence on the scandal. "When I decided to enter public life, I didn't realize how public it would be."
Poor thing. How could the Magna heiress possibly expect that carrying on an affair with a married, well-known Toronto Maple Leaf may turn into a public soap opera?
Hmm, photogenic politician with a penchant for romantic scandal links up with a popular fire hydrant of a hockey hero, who just happens to be married with three young children -- why would anyone care?
"And it's unfortunate for other women in this country," Stronach went on to whine, "that want to seek political office and to make a contribution."
All of a sudden Stronach is speaking on behalf of the sisterhood? Spare us.
This from a woman who didn't let her sense of solidarity stop her from allegedly stealing another sister's husband. Which, if true, is quite rich coming as it does from a politician who is also head of the Liberal women's caucus.
But she, for one, fails to see the irony. Asked if she felt the messy divorce allegations might compromise that role, Stronach replied: "No, I do not."
Think again.
For days now, the front pages have been filled with the bitter details filed in divorce papers by Domi's scorned wife, Leanne. Tie's "intimate sexual relationship (with Stronach) may have commenced when he began working on her political campaign in January, 2006," Leanne says in the document which contains allegations not tested in court. Tie Domi has yet to file a response.
"He wants to ensure I am appropriately punished for not embracing his new-found love with Belinda."
Personally, I don't care who our politicians are shagging, so long as they are both consenting, unattached adults. Call me old fashioned, but I still think adultery says something about the participants' character -- and is equally damning on male and female alike.
Meaning the former Leaf enforcer ranks just as low in our books, lower in fact.
Two years ago, I spent hours with Leanne Domi in researching a "day in the life" feature on the hockey wife. The devoted mother was sweet, down-to-earth and incredibly loyal to her husband.
At the time, his past affair with Tia Carrere was well known as was their temporary separation. With that past behind them, I remember gingerly asking her what it was like to be married to a popular hockey star who spends so much time on the road.
GAME HAS CHANGED
"I don't think hockey players are any different than businessmen," she said at the time. "I think the game has changed to a certain degree. I don't think it's as wild as people think."
She had faith in her husband, she insisted.
"If you're going to spend your life worrying about what they're doing when they're not with you, maybe you should fix that," Leanne said.
"I trust my husband. We've moved on and it's not something we bring up."
But she was gravely mistaken, she says in her divorce papers. "I chose to be the blinded, befuddled, naive wife who believed her husband -- because he told me that he would never lie to me again. I was wrong."
Even back then, there was something odd about their relationship. Leanne confessed that Domi was quick to tell her how lucky she was to have married him. "He thinks he did me such a favour," she said in 2004. "He'll go 'choo-choo' just to see me steam. Tie just does it for a reaction. He thinks all of us wives are just on the gravy train."
What was even more bizarre occurred after photographer Veronica Henri took a lovely shot of the couple holding hands after the Leafs game. Domi called the next day and asked that we not use it, insisting the photo was too contrived and affectionate and that it wasn't their style.
It seems the tough guy didn't like how it made him look in public.
Funny how a few years later, according to the divorce papers, Domi wasn't as concerned with how he looked being Stronach's "shopping Sherpa" as he schlepped her parcels down Madison Ave. in New York.
If anyone has a double standard, it would be Tie Domi.
PING!
That is an inaccurate term in this context.
"Call me old fashioned, but I still think adultery says something about the participants' character -- and is equally damning on male and female alike. "
Isn't this the one X-president DOLITTLE was banging on?
OK, so help me get this straight:
| This: | begets these: |
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| and this: | begets this: |
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| and this: | begets this: |
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Well, that seals it: I'm going out tonight to get guitar, hockey, and acting lessons!
I already have the ugly goon part down pat, so with a couple of lessons in these three domains, I'll have hot sexy wealthy ladies begging me to spend time in their "penalty box"....
BTW, also see:
Stronach joins Domi in the sin bin
Domi's wife takes divorce public - interview with scorned wife, pictures, etc.
Get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free!
I have heard in the past that this woman is an air-head (there is nothing up there)? The only reason she is anything is becasue of her daddy's money. Any truth to that rumor, my Canadian freepers?
OK she may be a bit nasty, but WAY better looking than Hillary, LOL.
"Get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free!"
Doesn't sound like dire straits to me.
Ditto to what GMMAC says. Her father is actually a billionaire BTW. You should understand that Belinduh stories are actually great entertainment for Canadian conservatives, because she's now in the Liberal Party. Like former Senator Jim Jeffords, she crossed the floor for immediate power only to find herself in oppostion soon afterwards.
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