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| The Cuban Government is saluting their former leader upon news of the passing of Fidel Castro |
The task of saying a few words for the recently departed is always kind of a tricky thing, for the most part we look to highlight the good qualities of people, glossing over any unfortunate incidents of the past that might have alarmed us back in the day.
Good advice when you're perhaps putting a few thoughts together about an uncle, aunt, or a former boss who maybe was a bit of a jerk; not so much it seems when dealing with someone such as Fidel Castro, who ruled his nation with an iron fist and was one of the most controversial figures of the last century.
Or, as the Prime Minister would put it "Cuba's longest serving President" and "a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century" ... something of course that is easy to do when you're a dictator and lock up, or dispose of the majority of your opponents.
Prime Minister Trudeau quickly discovered over the weekend that his flowery composition that saluted the reign of Fidel Castro was an Ode too Far for many. With the social media savvy Trudeau becoming the instant meme for social media of the weekend and launching what became a wildly energized twitter festival under the hash tag of #Trudeau eulogies.
It was form of social media push back that came from where Justin Trudeau seems to live these days and may actually resonate with the Prime Minister, considering his attachment to the various tools of the new media and its abilities to deliver an instant verdict on current events.
The twitter storm that was unleashed provided for a collection of some pretty fascinating observations that seem to suggest that the Canadian leader might be a little lite when it comes to his historical studies.
First though, we go to the statement, the official word from the Prime Minister as he spoke for Canadians on the passing of Mr. Castro, a man who has been the focus of much of the political narrative since he arrived out of the Cuban back country in January of 1959 to claim the Cuban Presidency in a revolution that captivated the world and at one point brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war.
Now the Prime Minister of course can call on a number of personal memories for his tribute, his father the former Prime Minister of the late sixties and the decade to follow, had a very personal relationship with the Cuban leader.
Mom and Dad Trudeau made a much documented trip to Cuba in 1976, cementing what evolved into a long term friendship between the former Prime Minister and the Cuban leader.
And Mr. Castro of course famously served as an honorary pall bearer at the funeral of Pierre Trudeau, mixing with many politicians of this hemisphere who didn't quite have the same outlook on governance at the time.
The current Prime Minister Trudeau perhaps was calling on those memories heard around the family dining room table over the years to form his talking point on this pivotal moment in history. Some fond remembrances of time spent by his father with Mr. Castro, where one imagines some of the more unsavoury elements of the Cuban leaders way of handling political issues did not get mentioned.
However, when it comes to crafting a statement that represents Canadian values (hello there human rights) on the global scene, perhaps scaling back the personal memories and focusing on some of the larger and often mentioned concerns related to the Castro era might have been a helpful guiding star for the Prime Minister.
With 24 hours or so to revisit those early thoughts and to conduct a bit of political damage control, the parsing of the Prime Ministers condolences began to flow.
The backlash to the original statement was pretty quick to come in, not only from Canadian sources, but from around the world where pretty well everyone seemed to be saying in unison "he said what?"
Below a few of the reviews of the Eulogy heard around the World.
Canada
The World
And now a word from twitter ....
As noted the remarks from the Prime Minister certainly caught the eye of two US politicians with strong ties to the Cuba exile movement in Florida.
First Marco Rubio took to the Internet to take the Canadian PM to task ...
Then came along Ted Cruz with a double shot of twitter tsk tsking
But one didn't have to be a politician to take to twitter to offer a contribution to the theme of the day, as the Trudeaueulogies theme picked up speed like a runaway freight train heading down the mountain side of public opinion.
The Prime Minister spent much of Sunday making his way back to Ottawa following his time at La Francophonie, but there are some early warning signs that he may have more than a bit of damage control ahead of him on a number of fronts.
A video greeting to CFL fans at the Grey Cup was greeted by a number of boos from some in the crowd, not an unusual thing of late at sporting events in any country, but still a little different reaction that he might be used to.
Monday may present a most challenging day for Mr. Trudeau and his image.
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