Politicians are assholes. That is a remarkable statement, surely the only one there is that can unite suits with dreadlocks, golf coursers with the pierced, and even The Vancouver Board of Trade with the Anti-Poverty Committee. But why exactly does everyone agree on this one point?

We all have widely disparate reasons to offer why this or that one is an asshole, which usually devolve into some variation of a personal anecdote illustrating the assholery. But no one seems quite capable of identifying, in a broad general sense, why we feel they all must be assholes, even those we’ve never heard of. No one is able to articulate it, yet of all instances of a broadly-felt consensus throughout every sector of society, this one stands alone for the sheer broadness of its appeal and the absolute certainty of its conviction.

“Asshole” is a pejorative typically deployed against those whom we sense strongly we can’t trust, yet about whom we have a hard time putting our finger on anything specifically deranged about them, like “liar” or “bigot” or “self-centered.” It’s a term reserved for those good enough at pulling off acts of deceit or statements of prejudice that they leave little direct evidence that anyone can clearly point to. “Asshole” is code for “this one is bad, trust me, it’s just I can’t directly tell what about him convinces me.”

As a pejorative, it remains under-used enough that it still packs heat. Interesting, then, that among politicians, it is used not at all sparingly but rather to the point of almost being synonymous with “politician.” And so, therein lies a clue: politicians as a group are overwhelmingly identified with exhibiting one or more anti-social traits in that special slippery manner that no one can quite put their finger on, so much so that “asshole” and “politician” can be used interchangeably in most conversations with no one losing the thread.

Happily, Liberal British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has laid out such a stellar display of this phenomenon that it may allow us, finally, to put our finger on it. The occasion is an essay by Campbell published in a Globe and Mail newspaper series on key issues in the province, called Head-to-Head. The subject in this particular installment was offshore exploratory drilling for gas and oil, and the August 22nd issue featured essays also by Carole James, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, and David Anderson, former federal minister of the environment, a Liberal. The James and Anderson essays presented typical and oft-heard arguments, and presented, moreover, nothing far from the predictable.

Campbell’s essay also served up the predictable. But curious seams in his language gives rise to strange unexpected gaps in the normal trains of thought our minds are accustomed to following, though they were so subtle, they were very easy to pass straight over without so much as feeling the wheels bump. It is in these gaps—the non-sequiturs, contradictions and mis-associations—where we find, I think, the cause of people finding politicians to be a kind of people trying to pull something over them, but in a way that isn’t obvious, and so earning them the general sobriquet “asshole.”

The opening paragraph gives the first sign something is amiss. A huge leap is unsupported between the very first sentence, evoking a mystical and legendary past, and the second, which, despite appearing in the same paragraph, has absolutely nothing to do with the first: “The vision of WAC Bennett has benefited every British Columbian in the last 40 years; because of his vision, our province has one of the least expensive and cleanest energy portfolios in the world,” says the first. “The offshore oil and gas reserves,” begins the second, “are significant enough for a full scientific review to be undertaken to discover if they can be developed in a scientifically sound, environmentally safe manner.”

If he meant to suggest that scientifically discovering how to proceed scientifically to consider the viability of offshore exploration is akin to actually building some of the world’s biggest hydroelectric dams, he abandons the association three paragraphs later, where it is now “incumbent upon us to ensure development of offshore oil and gas moves forward.” Would that the incumbency to move forward were stated in the opening paragraph, the association to Bennett’s dams would have been clear.

It isn’t the only odd non-sequitur in the piece. Try to work out what paragraph progression is achieved here in two sentences that also follow one another directly: “The ocean’s temperature is rising and it is acidifying. Further, we are in the midst of a review with First Nations and coastal communities that will be directly impacted . . .”

Here is another odd sentence, one composed of nothing but familiar phrases: “It should be clear that few if any British Columbians would seek to exploit [these reserves] if there was to be significant environmental risk.” It is as though, like the essay in its entirety, a barrel of catch phrases were rolled around and the writing was constructed of the random bingo ball-like falling out of whatever phrase came next: “It should be clear,” is one, that “few if any British Columbians,” is another, “would seek to exploit,” is a third, these reserves “if there was to be,” is yet another, and “significant environmental risk,” another still.

“Few if any” really sticks out, doesn’t it: not a major gaffe, but it reveals something about the construction of the essay. Does he know of at least some who would seek to exploit the reserves regardless of significant environmental risk?

“As we move to a new low-carbon economy,” he later intones, “we will require energy from traditional sources to bridge our way to the future.” Yes, quite, much like how we used “traditional sources” to bridge our way from the merely dirty past into the much huger mess we’re in now.

The critical failure of this progression is marked by a more readily obvious flaw. Now we really see the connection to WAC Bennett dam building evoked in the very first sentence: Campbell would like us to think that oil and gas recovered from offshore wells will be used, like the electricity from our dams, by us, promising us cheap and plentiful energy, just as Bennett’s dams gave us cheap and plentiful energy and thus built the provincial economy.

But of course, oil and gas are priced and distributed in thoroughly global markets. No oil or gas pulled up offshore will be used by British Columbians, nor does any spell lower prices or greater supply for British Columbians. The globalization of oil and gas supply and demand is the key feature of all 21st Century politics and economics and is the main driver of all market trends, military mobilizations and “emergency summits.” How this key fact of political and economic life escaped Campbell would be the mystery of the age, unless he’s obscuring the fact to manufacture popular support for the hitherto unpopular offshore exploitation of oil and gas reserves.

Everyone reading his essay can sense the presence of bullshit, but can’t necessarily see it. That’s why we call them assholes, it’s the place the shit comes out of.

The purposeful confusion of terms and references becomes full blown toward the end of the essay. After identifying the word “we” repeatedly with “British Columbians” specifically, which is all the BC Premier is required to consider, “we” in the sense of humankind is deployed, but without any indication there’s been a switch of reference: “As we [meaning BCers] move towards a low-carbon economy, we [now meaning humankind] will continue to need oil and gas for things like pharmaceuticals, plastics, hybrid vehicles and many other products.” When did “we” start manufacturing hybrid cars and plastics? And please note the “hybrid” slipped in there gratuitously.

The essay is pushing something and the author is not being clear about what it is. The only time we find someone being purposefully unclear about something they want is when it’s bound to be something we don’t want: “. . . it should be clear . . . ,” “. . . we intend . . . ,” “and “our government’s position is clear . . . ,” are the type of phrases that sound all too much like the infamous “trust me” that is the dead giveaway of the man who should never be trusted.

The essay, purportedly meant to clarify the government’s position regarding offshore oil and gas, is anything but clarifying. It is muddying, in the manner of shit spreading in the water, just like the offshore body of water in question will be muddied by gas and oil exploitation, come to think of it. And Campbell is emitting it. This essay provides an excellent illustration of why politicians are identified as assholes.