Duffy trial
The media seems to be going overtime building expectations that this is the trial of the decade. Such media attention that you would think Mike Duffy was an an ex-Minister charged with fraud or a deputy-minister charged with producing child pornBut with everything that gets reported by the punditry and repeated by like-minded media outlets, there is a goal.
The goal is to subject conservatives to doubts about Harper, much like the liberals where forced to endure over the revelations uncovered by the AG report on the Sponsorship program. The net result of that was that it brought the civil war raging within the liberal party out in the open. This is the goal the punditry and liberal partisans wish for.
Here's the problem.
First: Duffy is on trial not the Harper government. Unlike the sponsorship scandal, Duffy wasn't operating as part of a scheme to channel government spending of a program to riding associations over several years. This is about improper filing of expense accounts, and by all appearances it would seem more senators, including ones not appointed by Harper, have also been playing loosey goosey with their expense claims.
Seeing as the media has now set the bar for what constitutes a "scandal" when it comes to senate expanse claims, and that Harper didn't appoint the liberal ones, it makes it hard to make the logical leap to assign blame to Harper. But hey, if they want to flog this dead horse.
Second: There is no split on the right, but there still exists one on the left. The split used to be in the liberal party, but its extended since the first coalition attempt to one between the LPC and the NDP. This split won't go away until the two parties merge, and that won't happen as long as the liberals cling to the myth of natural governing party and stops seeing the NDP as having only a supporting role.
Then there is the role of the media.
They want this to morph into a scandal, a big scandal, bigger than Adscam.
That's a big expectation to fill, and in a media environment filled with those annoying fact checking bloggers, the twitter-verse, and a 24/7 news cycle requiring new information to stay front and centre, the odds that this story is going to fall off the front page after a week is pretty good. This could cost some media their jobs if they get caught torquing a headline to feed the narrative. Keeping this narrative is going to take a lot of effort and the outlets are going to have to work hard at not only that but keeping attention off of those other stories that pop up, like ISIS, Ukraine, Iran, two provincial elections, a federal budget, an Ontario budget dealing with pending insolvency, etc. etc.
Lets also not forget the laurentian elite. They have a dog in this hunt. They resent that the guy running things is at heart a guy that would like to see the upper chamber reformed, and because the OLO wants the place abolished, they naturally gravitate to someone that will allow them to go back to business as usual, even to the point of releaving them of maintaining any partisan allegiance. They don't like the great unwashed poking their noses in and around the senate or being obligated to justify their seat in the senate to anyone but the one that brought them to the dance. So naturally they jumped at the opportunity to stick it to Harper, Duffy fit the bill. He spent a good deal of time on the Hill and was well known by journos and politicians alike, and what his personal quirks where as well..meaning they knew the day this guy got appointed they could lead him down the garden path and then burn him later. But without thinking they sowed the winds. Recall that Harper warned them not to make senate reform an election issue. But by airing all this dirty laundry, any voter paying attention, will see a need to fix the senate.
Now if this is a ballot question, you have two choices, to be technical three, but two for sure. Change the senate so it is more responsible (which is a Canadian tradition) or abolish. Oh I did say three, yeah try to tell the voter you intend on fixing the senates problems by keeping it the same, which is kind of difficult to do if you ejected them out of your caucus and relinquished any oversight at all.
So here's a possible scenario of how this will work out.
Duffy is found guilty of accounting errors and a slap on the wrist.
The pundits, and media having invested in the trial will push to make this an election issue.
Harper will offer reform, the same reform he attempted before, but this time for the popular vote component of the 50% - 7 provinces. If he recieves another majority he will accept it as a mandate to act.
Mulclair, not wanting to ceed any ground to leisuresuit larry, will take the NDP position of abolishing the Senate, with the burden of having to obtain unanimous consent.
That leaves the other guy having stand on the status quo, or support one of the other options, and have you ever heard Justin explain anything?
He warned them.
"don't let me make this an election issue"
Labels: the free lunch crowd at it again
posted by gimbol @ 5:24 PM
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