Credibility: It's a context thing, I guess.

Shorter Canadian wingnuts: "As drooling yokels who immediately embraced every ridiculous fable and fairy tale from a low-level Canadian consulate peon regarding Suaad Hagi Mohamud, it's obvious that intelligence officer and ex-diplomat Richard Colvin is full of shit. I mean, really, what a liar."

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: Over at the Li'l Rascals Cardboard Tree Fort and No-Girls-Allowed Clubhouse, The Politic's Jonathan McLeod has a brief attack of sanity and actual logic:

The government’s argument is weak and implausible. It seems unrealistic that no prisoners whom Canada turned over to Afghan authorities were tortured. Mistakes are going to happen, sadly, but the Conservatives’ offensive is just a little bit too much.

Even if the government was not complicit in any wrongdoing by senior officials in Afghanistan, its refusal to properly confront this issue after the fact makes them accomplices. If they want to return to side of the righteous, they must make sure that this never happens again; they must take the NDP’s advice and create some sort of public investigation.

It is imperative that any investigation be public. Stephen Harper’s government has already made too much of an effort to hide inconvenient testimony to be fully trusted to take care of this matter on their own.

Sadly, Jonathan's thoughtful and nuanced piece attracts exactly the wrong demographic in the way of commenters. The stupid, crazy demographic.

ABOUT THAT "BURDEN OF PROOF" THING: Have you noticed that the people howling about the overwhelming need for absolutely unimpeachable, incontrovertible truckloads of evidence are, for the most part, the same ones who believe in an invisible, intangible God? For no reason. Just because. It's a "faith" thing and, no, they don't want to discuss it intellectually.

And, no, they don't see the hypocrisy.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, your compassionate Conservatives:

machiavelli on November 20th, 2009 6:06 am:

All Canadians, who are not left-wing extremist or terrorists coddlers, are demanding that the the opposition parties and the left-wing whack-jobs in the press gallery, lead by the far-left bias CBC,Tor star, Globe & Mail, and the CTV, explain why they are so, so concerned about the alleged mis-treatment of their beloved Taliban terrorist heroes, and why they hate our Canadian troops.

Why are the far-left opposition party members and the left bias, anti Conservative Party press so willing to believe the second-hand, unnamed, flimsy,alleged, possibly fabricated, instantiated “evidence” promulgated by a whack-job, terrorist loving, far-leftdiplomat , Colvin rather than their government? This terrorist loving traitor who has no creditability spins second-hand Taliban rumours from his terrorists friends who are attempting to discreditthe Canadian troops by lying as they are trained to do in the Al Qaeda manual. Our Canadian legal system depends on evidence rather than here say from terrorists or terrorists supporters such as Colvin.

These, of course, are the same terrorist hugging opposition members who are extremely concerned about the human rights of terrorists such asthe Canadian savage Khadr, but who despise our troops and everything that they stand for, and have always been against the war on terrorism.

And remember, ladies ... he's single.

P.S. I'm thinking that, if someone knew who "machiavelli" was, Richard Colvin would have a solid case for a defamation lawsuit. I'm just sayin'.