Well, I tried to fight it but there's just too much wankery goodness to keep my little paws off the keyboard. The latest atrocity from the wankersphere involves the Conservative Party of Canada finally coming clean and admitting they broke the law during the last election.
But not to worry since, as Jason Cherniak explains, the admitted additional revenue of $1,453,625 is exactly offset by the magical discovery of (wait for it ... wait for it ... here it comes ...) $1,453,625 in "other" expenses. What a breathtaking coincidence. Some people just have all the luck, don't they? Of course, the fun only starts when you check out the reaction over at the Blogging Tories, as they try to decide just how to spin this.
Over at True North, Jason complains that "we'll never hear the end of this" and that "Liberals desperate for some material to use against the Conservatives won't be letting go of this any time soon." Which is, as we can all appreciate, totally, totally unfair since it's been, literally, days since the CPoC admitted to breaking the law. I mean, that whole scandal is so last Tuesday. Grow up and move on, fer Chrissake!
(Luckily, as Jason, points out, "accountability isn't a big issue right now for Canadians." Another stroke of good fortune, apparently.)
The Phantom Observer seems to have the same concern, suggesting that we should "expect this story to get some extended by-play in the media." But no fear, since PO is on top of the situation. You see, he has a plan:
Is this going to be played up? Oh, hell, yes. For one thing, the government isn’t really scheduled to do anything for the month of January; some policies will come into place, but financial irregularities tend to be a lot sexier in terms of amplification into scandal. And for another, look who’s got the file on this for the Liberals: the conspiracy maniac, Mark Holland:
See, that's step one -- paint the critics as mentally-unhinged, conspiracy theorists. It's always good to start with a snappy ad hominem.
So a slow news period plus a hyperactive MP with lots of media access equals trouble in the New Year.
Ah, yes, and he's hyperactive, too. Nice touch. But here's the best part of the strategy:
Second, if this is to float, then the one word Holland needs to avoid is “corruption.” Once he uses that, Baird will have the ammunition to smack the issue down as hypocrisy, and hypocrisy won’t float very well where the Liberals are concerned.
Yes, by God, that's the ticket, because since the Liberals were caught wallowing in their own little cesspool of corruption once upon a time, this naturally means that the Conservatives should receive a free pass from any similar criticism from now until the heat death of the universe. Otherwise, the Liberals are hypocrites. See how that works?
But perhaps the most entertaining disconnect from reality comes from Dante over at "Uncommon Truths" (which has to be the frontrunner for most hilariously-misnamed blog on the planet). Dante, who apparently didn't get the memo from CPoC HQ, dismisses all of this as a "non-story", then writes:
So, the moral of the story is that the Conservatives are bad because they paid the money back?
Oooooookay ... I'm thinking Dante might have missed the part of this story that had to do with $1.5 million in undisclosed donations. I could eviscerate the rest of Dante's idiocy but, seriously, that would be just cruel. And I'm trying to turn over a new leaf.
HOMEWORK FOR THE AMBITIOUS READER: Document the atrocities.
2 comments:
Luckily, as Jason, points out, "accountability isn't a big issue right now for Canadians." Another stroke of good fortune, apparently.
Really? For this Canadian, it is a big issue - especially when the bunch of crooks in power spent all of their time trumpeting how "honest and accountable" they were last election.
Exactly.
Not just that, but this whole idea of accountability is not something a government ought to be patted on the back for, it's the absolute bloody minimum we ought to expect. It's bedrock, foundational, need I say essential? One could as easily imagine General Motors crying loud huzzahs over the fact that their cars had tires.
Another bit is that the figure of $1.5 million rang a bell, and in searching I found this CTV story, where the figures for the amount of Adscam money that actually made it back into Liberal party coffers was "$800,000 in official donations and more than $1 million in kick-backs".
And the Liberals had at that point paid back $1.14 million.
Point is that the amounts in question are pretty similar, and the Liberal malfeasance cost them government. Fair's fair, eh?
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