Layton: SARS, BSE, WHAT--EV'ER...

Jack Layton demonstrated this week why the NDP are increasingly irrelevant and slumping in the polls by confusing BSE and SARS in a speech to Manitoba farmers. OOPS. This is the CP story, further evidence of Jack's decreasing level of importance is that no one bothered to pick the story up:

Jack Layton mistakes SARS for BSE in speech to Manitoba Agriculture producers

Jan 17, 2007 BRANDON, Man. (CP) It was all acronym soup at a speech by Jack Layton at Manitoba Ag Days on Wednesday.The federal NDP leader left agricultural producers looking at each other in wide-eyed wonder after a speech about farm issues in which he repeatedly referred to the "SARS'' crisis which affected the Manitoba cattle industry. "Another important issue is SARS,'' said Layton. "I was just talking to a cattle producer today who said the situation is worse now than when we were in the middle of SARS.''

As Layton continued his speech, Manitoba Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk loudly whispered, ``It's BSE, not SARS,'' from her seat at the front of the audience. BSE is the acronym for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, while SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, therespiratory illness that paralyzed Toronto for several months in 2003.However, Layton didn't hear Wowchuk and kept going, saying SARS several more times, until producers in the audience chimed in to point out his error.Finally he got the message and stopped his speech.``I'm sorry, did I say SARS? I meant BSE. SARS is a Toronto problem,''Layton said, to laughter from the audience.But the joke was lost on some. Don Neufeld, who raises cattle near Boissevain, Man., said that politicians of all stripes "just don't understand what's happening at the grassroots'' and suffer from an overall ignorance of farm issues. (Brandon Sun, Winnipeg Free Press)

I used to think "say-anything Jack" was just his reputation from his days at Toronto City Hall, so much for that theory.