A couple things on Jean
Frum's article here is pretty good.
No, this story is about the people who appointed Michaelle Jean. In that context, the "loyalty tests" so piously deplored by the Globe and Mail and (what a coincidence!) the Prime Minister's spinmeisters suddenly become very relevant indeed.
Let us remember, please, that the one and only excuse offered Canadians for the unwholesome bargains that kept Paul Martin in office this spring was ... the utter moral illegitimacy of having any contact of any kind with Quebec separatism.
So Paul Martin argued that it was intolerable to Canada to have an election when his poll numbers dipped after the sponsorship revelations because only "the separatists benefit from a premature election, and it is beyond belief to me why Stephen Harper wants to play that game."
Jack Layton and the NDP had campaigned in 2004 on a promise to "get tough on sleaze." Yet when the sleaze of the sponsorship scandal was exposed, Layton negotiated a deal to keep the sleazy in power. How did he justify that? In a speech in Halifax on April 28, he argued that as a Canadian patriot he had no choice: to vote against the government was to "get in bed" with the separatists.
And when the vote did finally loom, and the Martin government was saved by the surprise defection of Belinda Stronach, guess what reason she gave? Interviewed on Canada AM the morning after her switch, Stronach said: "I don't believe it's right to line up with the Bloc Quebecois, who have a separatist agenda, to bring down the government." Then, to drive the point home, she repeated her little talking point three times more.
When it was useful to them this spring, the Martinites applied loyalty tests with a zeal that would have done credit to Senator McCarthy himself. But the spring was such a long time ago. In those buried and bygone days, it was an affront and an offense to join with separatists to defeat a corrupt government.
Also, here's an interview CFRA's Steve Madely had with National Post reporter, Julie Smyth - the one who interviewed Helen Scherrer.
Liberal 'due diligence'= Paul Martin saying "Oh, yeah, I know her from TV! Get her!"
No, this story is about the people who appointed Michaelle Jean. In that context, the "loyalty tests" so piously deplored by the Globe and Mail and (what a coincidence!) the Prime Minister's spinmeisters suddenly become very relevant indeed.
Let us remember, please, that the one and only excuse offered Canadians for the unwholesome bargains that kept Paul Martin in office this spring was ... the utter moral illegitimacy of having any contact of any kind with Quebec separatism.
So Paul Martin argued that it was intolerable to Canada to have an election when his poll numbers dipped after the sponsorship revelations because only "the separatists benefit from a premature election, and it is beyond belief to me why Stephen Harper wants to play that game."
Jack Layton and the NDP had campaigned in 2004 on a promise to "get tough on sleaze." Yet when the sleaze of the sponsorship scandal was exposed, Layton negotiated a deal to keep the sleazy in power. How did he justify that? In a speech in Halifax on April 28, he argued that as a Canadian patriot he had no choice: to vote against the government was to "get in bed" with the separatists.
And when the vote did finally loom, and the Martin government was saved by the surprise defection of Belinda Stronach, guess what reason she gave? Interviewed on Canada AM the morning after her switch, Stronach said: "I don't believe it's right to line up with the Bloc Quebecois, who have a separatist agenda, to bring down the government." Then, to drive the point home, she repeated her little talking point three times more.
When it was useful to them this spring, the Martinites applied loyalty tests with a zeal that would have done credit to Senator McCarthy himself. But the spring was such a long time ago. In those buried and bygone days, it was an affront and an offense to join with separatists to defeat a corrupt government.
Also, here's an interview CFRA's Steve Madely had with National Post reporter, Julie Smyth - the one who interviewed Helen Scherrer.
Liberal 'due diligence'= Paul Martin saying "Oh, yeah, I know her from TV! Get her!"
