Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet

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"Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet (Sorry.)" was a pejorative used to refer to Ontario Liberal Party leader Dalton McGuinty in a press release disseminated by the rival Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on September 12, 2003, during the provincial election campaign in Ontario, Canada.

McGuinty with a kitten, in a picture referencing the pejorative.

1 Overview
2 Possible origins
3 See also
4 Newspaper articles
5 External links

[edit] Overview

The e-mail press release denounced various Liberal statements as scare-mongering against the Tories' record; the inclusion of the word "sorry" in brackets may indicate that the line's author or authors intended it to be an over-the-top sarcastic comment. According to the Globe and Mail:

One sophomoric staffer [on the Progressive Conservative campaign] decided to vent his frustration with the campaign's reverses by drafting a bogus news release. It ranted about the fact that the media criticize so-called Tory attack ads and praise Mr. McGuinty for taking the self-styled 'high road.' The 'kitten-eater' phrase was included at the end as an illustration of a truly extreme attack. The release drew laughs from half a dozen campaign aides who saw it. More tellingly, in a collective somnolence, no one killed the release.

The e-mail was one of many releases all the parties routinely sent out to the press. The Tories normally ended their missives with the more subdued "Dalton McGuinty. He's still not up to the job." Which Tory staffer was responsible for the kitten eater line has never been disclosed. According to John Ivison of the National Post, "sources inside the PC camp say Watt signed off on it"; Jaime Watt was the Tory campaign co-chair.

The incident was an embarrassment for the Tories, who were already having difficulty in the election. Their leader, Premier of Ontario Ernie Eves, refused to apologize for the incident, but acknowledged that it was "over the top" and that someone had probably drunk "way too much coffee." Press reporting on the incident appeared to turn public opinion against the party, not due to the comment itself, but that the fact that it became public suggested a campaign that was badly out of control and growing desperate. The incident came in the middle of a large campaign of attack ads launched by the Tory party targeting McGuinty, most notably focusing on his strong links to the teacher's unions. The release, while likely in jest, was seen as a symbol of the negative turn the Tory campaign had taken.

McGuinty denied the accusation of ailurophagy. "I love kittens, and I like puppies too," he commented. Though he initially pledged not to allow the issue to side-track the campaign, the Liberals ran with the joke. Slogans involving kittens ("We may be kitten-eaters but we want change") were printed on T-shirts, a group of Liberals meowed at an assembly in Niagara Falls, and McGuinty had his picture taken with a kitten named Snowball as he visited a farm in Stratford.

Editorial cartoonists had a field day with the accusation, depicting the plain-faced McGuinty as a less than intimidating reptile creature. Patrick Corrigan of the Toronto Star depicted Eves as a kitten on a plate in front of a hungry McGuinty. Another editorial cartoon tied the comment to the province's recent tainted meat scandal, with a reptilian McGuinty reassuring a frightened kitten that he'd never eat uninspected kitten meat.

The accusation may have played a role on election day, three weeks later, when the Liberals received a large victory from voters. After the election, Ivison stated that "it was not the turning point — Tory support was already hemorrhaging — but it was perhaps the defining moment of the campaign."

[edit] Possible origins

Sonia Verma of the Toronto Star speculated that the original kitten-eater comment may have been a reference to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which at one point featured a kitten-eating demon, a character by the name of Clem. He played "kitten poker", in which kittens are used as chips, and was reputed to eat his winnings. [1] However, he was not reptilian.

[edit] See also

[edit] Newspaper articles

Sonia Verma: Did Buffy character inspire PCs' "reptilian kitten-eater" insult? Toronto Star 13 September 2003 (now in paid archive).
Graeme Smith: Meow! The Globe and Mail 13 September 2003 (now in paid archive)
Richard Mackie: Tories caught catnapping Globe and Mail 16 September 2003 (now in paid archive)