When are you simply too stupid to forgive?

As I pointed out back here, there is apparently nothing too idiotic or dishonest that can't be forgiven by those compassionate conservatives over at the Blogging Tories (as long as it's forgiving one of their own, of course).

Unfortunately (and totally predictably), those wanks are still woefully clueless about what happened here, and Dave over at TGB is only too happy to explain it in painful detail:

O'Connor would have been required to complete the OPD program while still serving in the army. Which means he should have been aware of the ICRC limitations on reporting the treatment of detainees.

Beyond that, however, is the fact that O'Connor has a relatively large staff which should be researching this material. How is it that he can step into the House of Commons and utter statements which are so far from accurate that they demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the details of prisoner and detainee monitoring?

Yes, there's that -- that O'Connor could have been ignorant about such a fundamental aspect of the ICRC monitoring of detainees. That alone makes him unqualified to be Canada's Defence Minister. But wait -- that's not all.

Dave quotes O'Connor's jaw-dropping dumbfuckitude in his apology to the House as he (O'Connor) tries to recover from his wretched idiocy (emphasis added):

“Mr. Speaker I would like to be clear: the International Committee of the Red Cross is under no obligation to share information with Canada on the treatment of detainees transferred by Canada to Afghan authorities. The International Committee of the Red Cross provides this information to the country that has the detainees in its custody, in this case, Afghanistan.”

As Dave points out, claiming that the ICRC has "no obligation" to share that information with Canada is the height of dishonest sleaziness. To say someone has "no obligation" suggests that, while they can't be forced to do something, they might still do it out of the goodness of their hearts or something. And as Dave points out (emphasis in original):

Let me be clear. They won't share information with Canada.

Exactly. It's not that the ICRC has no obligation to share information with Canada; it's that they have an obligation to not share. And if you can't understand the fundamental distinction there, you have absolutely no right to be this country's Defence Minister.

What a maroon.

P.S. Go on ... leave a comment insisting that there's no difference between those two statements. Go ahead -- make my day.